


Time and Time Again

by phantisma



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Character Death, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 23:28:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5474489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantisma/pseuds/phantisma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of everything, Vala Mal Doran stands alone, the last of SG1 left standing. When she is offered a chance, a possibility to change one moment in her life, she changes everything, and in the end, changes nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Time Again

It was over. More than over. She’d stood beside another grave trying to pretend she was completely capable of saying goodbye forever, that she hadn’t been changed by the years spent in the company of the first real family she’d ever really known, that she could…no, would, go on.

Her hair was more gray and white than black now, and even the pigtails weren’t enough to make her look younger than she was. She still wore the uniform, but it was more habit. She had a closet full of fabulous clothes, but she never really wanted to wear them any more. She didn’t go through the gate much anymore, not since Cameron had been taken by a plague so virulent they couldn’t even bring his body home. He’d been the first. Vala had stood there staring, her arm around Sam’s shaking shoulders, blindly offering comfort she was too numb to comprehend.

It hadn’t been long before Sam retired to be a grandmother to Cassandra’s children. She’d stayed close, and they’d have dinner, coffee, breakfast…until the day they were leaving a coffee shop together and right into the path of two men fighting. Sam’s head hit the concrete with a sick, wet sound and she had knelt there, in the spilled coffee and blood, Sam’s final breaths gasping out with goodbyes and “Tell Daniel…” It had been stupid and senseless and she hadn’t come out of her room for weeks after.

It had been Teal’c who finally got her breathing again, moving again. She wasn’t the same, but he pretended that she was and she slowly believed enough to get back to the job she had once taken as a sort of farce, a good position to scope out her next score. Only now it wasn’t a joke. They were SG1. They saved the world. Sometimes more.

But, Muscles died at the middle of a complicated political puzzle at the heart of the Jaffa nation. He’d talked about taking her to see something on the new Jaffa home world when he came back, but only hours after he left Stargate Command, word came that he was dead, his throat slit.

She still came to the mountain every day and they gave her things to do. Daniel had let her hang out in his lab, help him catalog artifacts while he told her stories of his childhood, or digging in various countries around the world before the SGC. 

Now though…

She stood staring at the door for a long time before she finally knocked. “Come in.”

She opened the door and the woman behind the desk waved her in. “Vala, I thought you were taking some time off.”

She was younger than most of the others who had sat at that desk, a strong woman with an impeccable service record and a kind face, only there since just before…well, not long. “General Lawson, I was thinking.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, licked her lips before trying again. “I think I might like to take you up on the offer you made when Daniel…well, before.”

She smiled sadly and nodded. “I thought you might. I have a ship ready for you.”

Vala raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

“It isn’t one of our new long haul cargo shuttles, don’t get excited. We have fully retrofitted an Al Kesh for you, completely upgraded and stocked with what you need to get you just about anywhere you want to go.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting. She sank slowly into the chair, her mind wandering back to other times in this office, other Generals, Daniel’s exasperation when she would push the boundaries.

“Not what you wanted?” The general turned alarming green eyes and pinned Vala to her spot.

“I…don’t know.” Vala exhaled, closing her eyes against tears she didn’t want to cry. “I don’t honestly know what I want.” She wanted her family back. She wanted to hear Sam laugh, to listen to Cameron’s stories about his flying days, to see Teal’c’s eyebrows raise, to feel Daniel’s hand on hers.

Tears slipped past her defenses and her hands shook as she lifted them to wipe at the tears.

“I know this must be hard for you.” 

“My whole life has been hard.” Vala countered. “Why should this be different?”

“Because this time, you learned to love.” The room was warm, bright. 

Vala blinked, but the light was getting stronger and General Lawson seemed to blur, like she was fading away.

“Tell me, Vala Mal Doran, if you could change one moment, any moment, of your life…if you could wish for the chance to have come to this place differently, what would choose?”

A dozen scenes from her life raced through her brain. The moment she was chosen to host a Goa’uld, the day she knew her father was never coming back, the way her mother looked at her…then a moment settled in her brain. She couldn’t have been more than three. A woman came to the village and offered to take children to a safe world where the Goa’uld didn’t come and steal them to make them slaves or monsters. She’d clung to her mother…but what if she’d been brave? What if?

 

***  
Magda Mal Doran laughed as her adopted daughter danced across the floor to whatever song was in the girl’s head, taking her hand to help her twirl as she reached Magda’s chair. Vala kept dancing, right up to the bookshelf, where she grabbed the book of fairytales and danced back.

“It’s reading time, Mom. Can you read to me?” 

Magda smiled. “Of course, my dear. What will it be today? Princesses?”

Vala climbed up into her lap and opened the book. “I like the one with the straw turning into gold.”

“Rumpelstiltskin? Didn’t we just read that one yesterday?”

“Again.” She nestled in against Magda and got comfortable while Magda found the place in the book and started to read. 

In the two years that Vala had come to live with Magda and her husband Jeffrey, it had taken work to draw her out of her shell. At three years old the little girl had barely spoken, and what words she said were silly, made up words no one understood but her...but they’d been patient with her and as they approached the date they’d chosen for her birthday, she was nearly ready for starting school in the fall. 

It was a mixed blessing. Magda couldn’t bear children and they had been turned down repeatedly by adoption agencies because of Magda’s disability…but Magda loved being a mother, loved having a child to pour her love into and Vala’s first day of school marked the beginning of her little girl really growing up.

 

***  
Vala stood beside her grandfather, trying to ignore the tears building in the corners of her eyes. Her mother didn’t want her to cry, so she wasn’t going to cry. Her mother had been strong and had raised her to be strong. She was a big girl now and she needed to be brave.

The mourners were sparse; a few close friends that Vala had known all of her life, Vala’s gymnastics teacher and dance instructor, some friends from school . Her grandfather was an old man she barely knew but once the funeral was over, she’d be moving to a whole new state with him, far from the people she knew. 

She was nine years old and for the second time in her life, she was starting over. She barely remembered the first time, just a few scattered memories of her first mother, of being scared and feeling alone, but all of that was overshadowed by the love of the mother and father that raised her. Now, as she climbed into the car with her grandfather she wondered if she would ever feel the safety and love they had given her ever again.

They drove away from the cemetery, away from her house and most of her things. There was a suitcase in the trunk with her clothes, some shoes, her mother’s locket with a picture of the three of them when Vala had been seven. She had tucked a couple books in there too, the favorites that they had read together, a few that they hadn’t ever gotten to. She had promised her mother she would continue to read every day, that she would never stop learning history and science and other things.

But first, she was in for a long drive. She laid down in the back seat of her father’s big old car and closed her eyes. She didn’t mean to cry, but she missed the softness of her mother’s thigh pillowing her head, the gentle touch of her hand stroking Vala’s face until she was asleep. 

 

***

She stopped at the door, her eyes swiping around the room, clocking the important information. Peter and Dominic were in the corner with what looked like a school book, but probably had a dirty magazine inside it. The old man was in his recliner, reading the paper, flicking it from time to time to pretend he was watching the kids. Jesse and Jenny sat on the couch playing with their Barbie dolls.

Her eyes caught on the new kid in the opposite corner from the older boys, knees folded up to his chest, hiding a bloody lip and black eye behind an old looking book. She crossed to sit next to him, bumping his shoulder with her own. “Who did the hitting?”

“No one.” He murmured, but his eyes lifted to the boys across the room.

“Dominic then?”

“He didn’t hit me.”

“No, he probably just shoved you into a door or something.” Vala had seen them harassing the poor kid the day before. He was a prime target for bullies like those two: small for his age, scrawny with long, shaggy hair and clothes that didn’t fit right, glasses that were too big for his face . It didn’t help that he was a little on the nerdy side, always lugging around dusty old books 

“The bookshelf, actually.”

She nodded, turning his face toward her. “We best put some ice on that lip and beat it outside before the old lady gets back. If she catches us in the kitchen, we’ll end up cooking dinner. Come on.”

She stood, at first not sure he’d come, but he stood, hugging the book to his chest and she made sure to keep herself between him and the bullies until they were out of the room. She opened the freezer and pulled out two cubes of ice, then grabbed a plastic baggie from the drawer beside the fridge. She handed him the bag, then climbed up on the counter, pulling her lock picks from her sock.

“Watch the door. I’ll get us some cookies.” 

Vala picked the padlock the old couple thought would keep the kids out of the treats they horded and pulled out a fistful or Oreos before she relocked it and jumped down. “Come on.”

She lead him out the kitchen door and down behind the shed, under the fence and down the worn path through the overgrown lot to the spot where the trees started, then into the woods, until they came to a dense thicket of young trees. Just around the other side was the place she came to get away from the foster family. The tarp was tied over a bolder and when she lifted the corner, the grommet fit neatly over one of the skinny trunks, creating a tent like space inside. There were cushions and a blanket and in a hole under the rock she kept the things she didn’t want to lose to the kleptomaniacs she shared a house with.

“How’d you learn to do that…with the lock?” 

“One of the boys in my last foster home. Taught me other stuff too. Stick with me, kid. I’ll teach you a few tricks.”

“Daniel.”

She frowned at him. “What?” 

“My name. I’m Daniel Jackson.”

“Right. I’m Vala.”

“I know. They told me yesterday.”

She divided up the cookies and sat with her back against the rock and one of the cushions under her. “If you want to get by here, Daniel, you need to learn to move faster, and look up out of your books once in a while.” She gestured at the book he was still clinging to as if it would protect him. “What are you reading, anyway?”

“It’s a book about the first archaeological dig in Egypt.” He pushed his glasses up on his face and grinned. “It even has pictures.” He held it up to show her a faded black and white photo of three men standing beside a pyramid. “It was my father’s.

Vala licked at the white creamy filling of her cookie and raised an eyebrow at him. “So you’re a nerd by birth then?”

His smile faded and he looked away, like she’d just kicked his puppy.

“Come on, Danny boy, you can’t let words get to you like that.” She reached over and ruffled his hair. “You gotta toughen up a little bit or this world is going to eat you alive.”

“I’m not a nerd.” He still looked sullen and he wouldn’t look up at her.

“Who cares if you are.” Vala said. “Smart people always win, Daniel. Remember that. The more you know, the better your chances.”

He nodded, but didn’t really look like he believed her. “My mum always told me to read everything, question everything. ‘Vala,’ she’d say, ‘you never know what you need to know, so always learn all that you can.” 

He smiled at her then. “That’s pretty smart.”

She grinned. “I’m smarter than I look. That’s how I like it. Eat your cookies.”

They sat quietly as they ate their stolen cookies. It felt oddly familiar. Comfortable even. She shook it off and leaned back against the rock. She couldn’t afford to get too comfortable. It was easier to deal with whatever came next if she didn’t settle in too much. After all, this was her third foster home since her grandfather had died when she was eleven, and she was still a few months shy of fourteen.

Daniel was a good kid though, even if he made a lousy lookout. “You know this is wrong.” Daniel hissed at her several weeks later as she worked to get the locker open.

“Will you just keep an eye on the hall?” Vala hissed back. “I already told you, it isn’t stealing. He stole it from me, I’m just getting it back.”

“You should have told the teacher.” Daniel protested.

“She would have just taken it from both of us.” Vala said, shaking her head. The locker came open and she recoiled from the smell. “Boys.” She waved a hand in front of her face before picking through the random debris of teenage boy life to find what she was looking for. “Got it.” She pulled the Swiss army knife out and shoved it into her pocket.

“Um, Vala?” Daniel’s eyes were wide as he turned to her and she looked up to see Jimmy Van Der Brok coming around the corner.

“Run, Daniel.” Vala grabbed his shoulder and pushed him away from Jimmy, running after him, laughing as they rounded the far corner and got into the crowd of students headed out to the busses. “Well, that wasn’t so bad.” Vala said as they sat together on the bus that would take them back to the foster home. It was Friday and Jimmy would be at his father’s house in the city for the weekend. By Monday the whole thing would have blown over.

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Daniel asked, shaking his head as he pulled out his dusty old book.

“You love me.” Vala insisted, sitting back to watch the other kids getting on. 

"Hey, Vala?" Daniel asked as the bus pulled out. "I heard Mrs. Beverly say that if you got in trouble again, she was going to ask the social worker to move you."

Vala shrugged, not all that surprised. "This is just a stop on the road, Danny."

His face was very sincere when she glanced at him. "The road to where?"

She shrugged again, her hand curling around the Swiss Army knife that had been her grandfather's. "I don't know. Home, I guess."

"I thought you didn't have a home, your parents…" He pushed his glasses up and looked away.

"I was adopted, did you know that?" Vala asked, sitting back and letting herself relax. "I don't remember much, but I know my mother loved me and I came a long way to live with the people who raised me."

"Do you think she's still out there somewhere?" Daniel asked.

"Maybe." Vala answered. "But I know what home feels like. And I'll know it when I find it."

 

"Don't make me do this." Vala hissed under her breath at the man beside her who responded with a hand in the small of her back, urging her forward as the door in front of her opened. Vala put on her best smile and held out her hand. "Good afternoon, I'm Vala and I'm here representing the Youth of Christ from the Frontline Baptist Church, how are you today?"

The woman looked tired, and a kid maybe five years old stuck his head between her hip and the door. "We are out this afternoon sharing the good word and taking up collections to help support our ministry." She opened the bible she was carrying and pulled out one of the pamplets, handing it across with a smile. "Do you know Jesus, ma'am?"

"We're Lutheran, but you seem like a nice young lady, hold on a minute. Roger!" She yelled back over shoulder. "Bring me my purse." A few seconds later she reached behind her and came back with a five dollar bill. "I hope it helps."

Vala smiled and took the money. "Thank you ma'am. God bless you."

She stepped off the porch and handed the money to her partner. "It's just sleazy." Vala would rather con them than this slimy religion garbage. It was cleaner somehow. 

"As long as you're living with us, we do this my way." 

She couldn't complain too much. As foster situations had gone, this wasn't the worst. At least the house was big and she was only sharing it with the pseudo-Pastor and his wife and one other kid. "Are we done yet?"

"One more street, then we head home. You got homework and chores."

She tugged on one pig tail, designed to make her look a lot younger than her sixteen years, then on the high collar of her dress. The house might be worth this door to door religious pitch, but the clothes made her itch.

But she had it figured out. She'd been dating a senior boy and the school year was nearly over. They planned on hitting the road, heading out to California for the summer. She was done with the whole foster thing anyway. She wasn't ever going to find what she was looking for jumping from one messy situation to another.

 

It was the smile. Vala just seemed to forget everything when she smiled. She laughed, her hand reaching out to catch Vala's waist, pulling her close as she bit her lip and her face flushed a delicious shade of pink. Vala glanced over her shoulder before pressing the beautiful science major into the corner of the school fence and the gym.

Vala leaned in, kissing over her lips, earning a nervous giggle. "No one's watching." Vala whispered. "And I've wanted to kiss you all day."

"Vala, I'm going to be late."

"Skip it."

"What?"

Vala pulled back and looked at her. "I mean it, Sam. Skip it. Play hooky with me. We can go to this place I know and do all manner of things your father wouldn't approve of."

She laughed and playfully pushed Vala away. "You know I can't."

"Why not? You're already going to the Air Force Academy. You're already top of your class. What can one day do to mess that up?" Vala kissed her again, licking at her lips until Sam opened her mouth and let her in, melting against Vala. "I'll even write you a note." Vala whispered in her ear. She pulled back, capturing Sam's hand and tugging lightly. "It's a beautiful day and your smile makes me want to do devious things to you."

Vala pulled and Sam came, rolling her eyes and glancing over her shoulder as if she expected to get caught. "Come on." Vala urged, moving faster now until they were nearly running, hand in hand, off the school grounds and into the trees. Vala didn't stop until they came to a grassy spot beside a deep bend in the creek where the water pooled deep enough to swim in.

"You're a bad influence." Sam said as they sat in the grass, though she was still smiling.

"You need a little bad influence." Vala teased, bumping shoulders. 

"My father would kill me…"

Vala leaned in and kissed her. "He'll never know." Vala kissed her deeply, pressing her back to lay in the grass before Vala's lips roamed from her mouth and explored their way down her neck. Vala licked at her heated skin, dipping below the modest scoop neck of her shirt to caress the crease between her breasts.

"Vala." Sam breathed her name, one hand resting lightly on her hip, the other lifting to Vala's face.

Vala came back to kiss up her neck to her ear. "Do you want me to stop?" She let one hand smooth up Sam's side, lifting her shirt part way.

"No." Sam shook her head lightly, chasing after Vala's mouth for a kiss. Vala obliged, working her shirt up and exposing her bra. Vala massaged over her breasts, pinching at the nearest nipple through the silky fabric. Sam arched up some, exposing her neck. Vala took the invitation, licking and nipping at the muscle before sucking lightly at her collarbone and then nuzzling into her cleavage. At the same time, she slipped her hand down over Sam's belly and popped the button of her jeans.

Sam groaned as Vala's hand slid into her panties and down, sliding along her slit. "Naughty girl." Vala whispered over damp skin before pressing her thumb into Sam's clit. 

"Vala!" Sam bit off the sound before it started to echo back to them, but as she lifted her hips, Vala inserted one slender finger into her as she began moving her thumb in tiny circles. Sam gasped, her eyes closing, her mouth open as she panted, her hips moving. 

Vala licked over her lips and fucked her finger in and out in time to the movement of Sam's hips. "That's it." Vala purred in encouragement, knowing just from the way Sam's breathing hitched and sped up that she was close to coming. "Let it go."

Sam grabbed her hand, pressing down onto her and Vala felt the warm rush of her orgasm coating her finger. Sam lay back, panting. Vala pulled her hand out and sucked the finger into her mouth before she laid down beside Sam. "I do love watching you fall apart like that." Vala said softly, turning to look at her.

It hadn't been a part of the plan. She'd seen Sam first as a challenge…the hard working, dedicated girl who never looked up from her studies, brilliant and focused. Vala had wanted to break that focus, to disrupt her drive. And she wasn't ready to say that this was love or anything like it, but somewhere along the line she had taken a real liking to her, and there was no denying she was beautiful.

She was the closest thing to a friend Vala had known since Daniel Jackson and his old books and his notions of right and wrong.

"Hey." 

Vala blinked and smiled at Sam. "What?"

"Where'd you go?"

Vala shook her head. "Just thinking. I'm going to miss you Samantha Carter."

Sam rolled over, frowning a little. "I don't leave for weeks."

Vala closed her eyes over tears she didn't expect. "I really like you." Which wasn't what she had meant to say at all. "That doesn't happen a lot." She opened her eyes to find Sam _right there_. 

"I really like you too, Vala." Sam responded, kissing her lightly. "Even if you're a bad influence."

Vala pulled back and sat up, suddenly taken by the reality that Sam only liked the person she thought Vala was. "You wouldn't say that if you knew me."

Sam reached for her, but she pulled away.

"Vala…" 

The truth was, Sam didn't know her at all. Vala was someone different around Sam. No, that wasn't true either, she was playing a character when she was with Sam, just as she did whenever she conned someone. Vala tried to shake it off, but Sam was concerned now, and she knew she wasn't walking away without some explanation.

Sam followed her to the edge of the water, slipping her hand into Vala's. "Hey, what's going on?"

Vala blinked back tears and shook her head, trying desperately to think of some way to guard her secrets when all she wanted to do was come clean. Sam seemed to take her silence as an answer though, pulling back. "Oh." She paced away and Vala wanted to do anything to go back to kissing her in the grass. "You're going to miss me, not because I'm going to leave for college, but because you're leaving. Now." Sam rolled her eyes and turned her back, zipping and buttoning her jeans. "That's why you were so insistent on this, on me skipping school."

Vala let a tear fall and latched onto the reason. "I don't want to." Vala said. "I have to."

Sam turned back to look at her, tears on her cheeks now. "Why. Tell me why."

Vala nodded, wrapping her arms around her stomach. "It's my brother. My foster brother." She took a deep breath and let the story unfold, hoping it would be enough. "I told you about him, remember?" Vala didn't wait to see if she responded. "I found out he's sick and he's all alone. The foster family he was with abandoned him, and they don't know if he's going to make it. I've got a ticket on a flight tonight. It was the first one I could get." She let a few more tears fall, her stomach twisting around the lie.

"Oh, Vala…I'm so sorry." Sam came to her, pulling her in and holding her. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine….I'm an idiot."

Sam kissed the tears off her face. "What can I do?"

Vala offered a weak smile. "Can we just have today? You and me and some fun?"

Sam nodded. "I think we can do that. My dad should have left on his trip by now. Let's go to my house."

Vala did her best not to give in the guilt twisting inside her, to let go of it and enjoy the day. When it was over she'd have to move on…find the next con worth spending some time on. If she thought of it like that, it almost didn't hurt. Almost.

 

Vala wound her way through the open air market, keeping her eyes open for anyone following her. She was pretty sure she'd gotten away clean, but she didn't want another debacle like the one in Turkey. She shifted the case in her hand as she approached a vendor selling colorful bags and backpacks. "Do you have anything less…obvious?" she asked in her best approximation of the local dialect. The man behind the wall of bags showed her a couple that she waved off before she spotted an old fashioned canvas backpack and pointed to it. She nodded when he held it up and fished money out of her pocket.

The trade made, Vala took the backpack and the case and ducked into a small café, commandeering a small table in the back. She set the case on the chair beside her and opened it carefully. There was a smaller box inside, along with the bag of stones that she'd originally been after. She moved them both to the backpack and put the empty case under the table.

She had changed clothes and donned a hat before getting to the market, now with the case gone, she should be able to evade anyone who might come looking. All she needed to do now was get back to Cairo and her planned exit from the country. 

Of course, that would be easier if she hadn't lost her jeep. She sighed and nodded to the waiter, ordering a drink while she contemplated her options. She was half way through her drink when an option she hadn't even considered found her.

"Vala?" She looked up, blinking as she tried to reconcile the face in front of her with the boy she had known. "Vala Mal Doran. It is you, isn't it?"

"Daniel." She smiled and stood, letting him pull her into a hug. "It's good to see you."

"You…what are you doing here?"

"That's a long story." Vala said, gesturing for him to join her. He sat, his blue eyes sharp and curious behind his glasses. "I…I seem to have misplaced my ride back to Cairo," she offered. "We had a…disagreement. So, I'm just sitting here trying to figure out how exactly to get there. What about you? What are you doing all the way out here?"

Daniel grinned and pushed his glasses up. "I'm here on a dig, with one of my professors. We came into town for supplies." He patted the bag hanging from his shoulder before lowering it to the tile floor. "I can't believe I'd run into you here of all places."

She laughed, she had forgotten how much she liked Daniel's company. "I was thinking the same thing…but then, you always had a thing for Egypt."

"It's amazing, really." Daniel said, his eyes lighting up. "You should see it. Actually no, you'd probably find it incredibly booring."

"Why, just because I'm not a geek like you?" Vala asked with mock indignation.

Daniel laughed. "No, because there isn't any treasure. Mostly pots and household items."

"Yeah, I can see how fascinating that is." Vala said dryly. 

"Well, it is." Daniel responded. "You going to tell me what you're doing in Egypt? Other than contemplating getting to Cairo?"

"Business." Vala responded. "We came to make a trade."

"We?" Daniel asked, clearly suspicious.

"Yes, me and a friend. He was the go between. I was looking to pickup an item that a friend of his was looking to get rid of. The whole thing went south when we couldn't agree on a price and he dumped me here with the clothes on my back and little else."

"So, you wanted it for free and he wasn't willing to let you steal from him." Daniel surmised. "Most people wouldn't."

"I did not want it for free." Vala said indignantly. "I was more than willing to pay him what he paid for it in the first place."

"Let me guess, he stole it?"

She shrugged. "I couldn't say. I wasn't part of that operation." She shook her head. "I was trying to get the item back to its rightful owner. There was a sizeable reward offered." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two men in uniform enter the café. She reached across the table for Daniel's hand and leaned in as if they were having a romantic moment, her eyes skipping up to watch the men before coming back to Daniel. "Forget all of that though. I want to know all about you, what have you been up to since the last time I saw you?"

Daniel raised an eyebrow, but played along, leaning in as well. "Going to school. Getting my PhD. Digging up old things. Vala, are you in trouble?"

Her eyes flicked up to the men who were sitting at a table now. "No, I don't think so. Just being careful." 

"Should we get you out of here before more of their friends come along?" He pressed his lips to her knuckles and she smiled.

"Yes, lets do that."

"You're going to owe me." Daniel said as he stood. 

Vala dropped enough money to cover her drink on the table and lifted her backpack onto one shoulder, before she slipped an arm around Daniel and let his body shield her from the uniforms as they exited the café. Outside, Daniel lifted an arm in greeting to a man approaching them.

"Daniel, I thought we were going to have lunch."

Daniel licked his lips and nodded. "I know, but I ran into an old friend, if you can believe it. I was hoping to catch up with her."

The man was a good thirty years older than either of them, though not bad looking. A little pudgy around the middle but otherwise in good shape from what she could tell, with big hands that looked like they'd spent a lifetime digging in the dirt.

"I can see I would not be as lovely a meal companion as your friend."

"Vala, Vala Mal Doran." She held out her hand. "It's a pleasure."

"Ah, yes, Professor Tilman, Vala was in the same foster home I was for a little over a year."

"Well, don't let me keep you two from getting reacquainted. Just make sure there's a jeep to take me back to the site this afternoon."

"After your meeting with the museum director, I remember." Daniel said with a smile. He steered her away from the man then, out of the market into a much quieter district lined with storehouses and punctuated by intermittent houses. Daniel let go of her then, moving quickly up the street.

"Are we in a hurry?" Vala asked, speeding up to keep up with him.

"Do you or don't you want a ride back to Cairo?" Daniel asked, glancing at her. 

"Well, yes. But I thought--"

"Oh, not today." Daniel said. "But some of the team is leaving at the end of the week, and new students coming in. Professor Landis will be driving out. I'm sure there's room in the jeep."

"What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" Vala asked as he pointed to a parking lot near the far entrance to the market.

"I'm sure we can come up with something." Daniel said, pulling keys out of his pocket. "Unless you want to get on a bus. There's one leaving tomorrow." 

Vala didn't really want to spend most of a week in a tent in the desert, and she was about to thank him and try her luck on her own when she spotted the jeep she'd left behind with her ex-partner when she'd run. If he'd tracked her this far…."Well, I do owe you one." Vala said, climbing into the jeep beside Daniel.

Daniel started the engine and drove them out of the town, turning on the radio mounted under the dash and tuning it before they'd gotten too far out. "Lansford Dig, this Daniel Jackson, come in."

"Go ahead, Daniel."

"I need you to send another jeep up to town to get the Professor, I'm headed back a little early."

"You just made Haley's day, she wanted to go with you, but overslept."

"Glad I could make someone happy." Daniel said with a grin. "Daniel, out."

The drive out to the dig site took a few hours and Vala was over the sand and the wind in under one. Still, she smiled as she got of the jeep. "I think my ass fell asleep."

"Walk it off." Daniel replied, gesturing at a modest looking tent. He ducked inside it, and she could hear him talking. When he came back he was without the bag. "Come on." He lead her through a group of tents before ducking into one of them, holding the flap for her. "It isn't much."

She shrugged and looked around. "Better than some places I've been."

"Well, I'm not sure where you're going to sleep, but we'll work something out. In the meantime, you can stash your stuff in here." 

Vala eased the backpack off her shoulder as she moved further into the tent. "Will it be safe?"

Daniel chuckled and shook his head. "Safer than that hole under the rock in your super-secret hide out."

"It befuddled those two buffoons who kept stealing your stuff." Vala countered, setting the pack down.

"Do you remember the looks on their faces when they stole the old man's girly magazines, only you had replaced the inside with the craft catalog?" Daniel laughed and surprised her by pulling her into a hug. "I never did thank you."

"Thank me?" she asked as he let go of her.

"You made that year bearable."

"Even if I dragged you into my less than honorable activities?" Vala asked. 

Daniel bit his lip and moved to sit on the cot. "Even if. I was miserable before I met you. You taught me how to survive."

"That first time I saw you, I knew you were going to need all the help I could give you." Vala came and sat beside him, her hand rubbing up his arm. She was surprised when he didn't pull away. "Those glasses and that old book…I bet you still have that book too."

Daniel hung his head a little. "It's actually here." He pointed to the small table beside the bed that held a small stack of books, a magnifying glass and a bottle of water."

She reached for it, sliding it out of the stack and opening it carefully. "Haven't you proven at least half of this is wrong by now?" she asked.

"You've read it?" Daniel asked incredulously.

"Well, a girl gets bored when she's hiding from the worst hide and seek player in the universe." She ran a hand over the worn cover. "Besides, I told you what my mother taught me. Learn everything."

"Actually, a lot of it holds up. But there are some interesting new theories…and some interesting artifacts."

Vala would never really be sure what made her do it, but her hand lifted to his face, her thumb gliding over his lips before she leaned in and kissed him. His mouth was warm and slack and he huffed a little in surprise. 

"Vala?" 

She stood, dropping the book. "I'm sorry." She stood and took two steps away, but his hand on hers stopped her and pulled her back. "Please, don't make it worse."

He shook his head, licking his lips. "No. Just…why?"

She shrugged minutely. "I don't know."

He nodded, but didn't let go of her. Instead, he drew her closer, his hands moving to her face, his eyes closing as he kissed her gently. His tongue slid across her lips and she opened them, letting herself relax into the familiar feeling that had been building since she'd first heard his voice in the café.

It was warm and comfortable, like a favorite pair of jeans, like letting go of all the people she was supposed to be so she could just be Vala. There was no burning need to get naked, to get to the part where it felt good. Just the kissing felt good, his lips on each inch of skin as it was exposed, her breasts heavy in his hands as her bra fell from her shoulders.

Daniel's hands were calloused, but gentle on her skin, his eyes intense as they met hers, asking permission, asking if this was what she wanted, and Vala had no words to answer them, she could only respond with an offering of her own, laying back beneath him and bringing him to her, surrendering into the heat as their bodies came together.

She shivered as he entered her, tilted her head back and arched up to meet him, sighing out low and deep. In this too he was gentle, more so than any she had ever had in her bed, save maybe one. She could feel herself blushing, melting in the heat of his attention.

Her orgasm surprised her, flushing her with more heat and seeming to spur Daniel on to his own moments later. He maneuvered himself to lay behind her, both of them panting lightly, their skin slicked with sweat in the desert heat.

They were quiet a long moment, Daniel's body tight against hers, his hand on her hip. Vala felt strangely unsettled and yet safer and more protected than she'd ever been. A tear slipped past her eyelid and she moved to wipe it away. "Did I hurt you?" Daniel asked softly.

"No." Vala answered, though the question sparked more tears. 

"Are you crying?"

She turned to her back so she could see his face. "Maybe a little."

"Was it that bad?" Daniel asked, pulling back a little. 

She kissed him and sniffled back the tears. "No, that good." Vala whispered. "And if you ever tell anyone…"

"My lips are sealed." Daniel responded, pretending to turn a key. 

Vala lifted her head to kiss him. The day had been a complete surprise, and the sun wouldn't set for hours. Daniel's hand splayed out across her belly and his kiss was deep and soft. "How long has it been since you slept?" he asked softly, his eyes meeting hers. "And I don't mean that pretend sleep you do when you're protecting something or someone. Really slept?"

Vala shook her head. Daniel's lips kissed up, over her cheekbones and pressed to her eyelids. "I've got you. You're safe here." Vala's hand tightened around his, but he just continued kissing lightly over her face. "Sleep, Vala."

She was pretty sure she meant to get up, but everything felt heavy and it wouldn't hurt…just for a little while….

 

The next few days were quiet, peaceful even. Vala helped catalog artifacts, which had an unusually calming affect on her. None of the items were particularly pretty or worth much, but they were ancient memories of a civilization that felt somehow familiar to her.

She took meals with the rest of the crew on the dig, sitting with Daniel, getting drawn in to their stories and lives. She could almost forget that this wasn't her life. And when Daniel's arm slipped around her and his kiss found her lips, she could almost let go of who she was away from here, away from him.

At night they shared a bed and if she was honest with herself, Vala had not had sex as satisfying since…well, since she'd lied to Sam and left her. 

All too quickly, the week was over. Vala sat at the small table strewn with notes and books as she brushed out her hair. Daniel was getting undressed behind her. They hadn't said anything since leaving dinner.

"You're quiet." Daniel said as his hands slid over her shoulders, gently massaging at tight muscles.

She slid a hand up to meet his, pulling it close and kissing the palm. "I'm thinking how much I wish I wasn't leaving in the morning."

"You could stay." Daniel said, the words just hanging there between them.

She'd thought about it, more than once even. She stood, moving into his arms and letting him kiss her. "I wish I could." She said it softly, hoping that she sounded sincere. She was sincere. She would certainly rather stay and see how this played out than to go deliver the box to the man waiting in Cairo for it.

"Do you need me to ask you to?" Daniel asked.

Vala closed her eyes and sighed. This was the reason that coming here, staying with him was wrong. "I can't, Daniel." She pulled away, rubbing hands up over her face and through her hair.

"Why? What's so important?" Daniel asked, his voice tight.

She didn't want to answer that. Answering it would change everything between them. Again. Just like it had that night all those years ago when she'd made the mistake of saying goodbye to him before she ran away. "Can we not do this?" Vala asked.

"I think you owe me that much."

She nodded. He wasn't wrong. She pointed to her backpack, still sitting where she'd dropped it that first day. "There's something in that bag that I have to deliver, and I'm running out of time."

"What?"

She crossed her arms and tried to push back the emotion welling up inside her. "I don't know. A box." She shrugged. 

"A box." Daniel said, narrowing his eyes at her. "What's in the box?"

"I don't know." Vala repeated. "It doesn't matter. What matters is, I need to get that box to Cairo. I need to deliver it to a very large man with a very bad temper before he decides I double crossed him and sends men to kill me." It was more than she meant to say. She dared a glance up, but then wished she hadn't. Daniel was angry, his eyes flashing.

"What are you into, Vala?"

"Nothing. Nothing. Just. It's a long story."

He nodded. "It always is."

"Daniel, please."

He shook his head. "No. Go. If you can't trust me with the truth, then I can't trust you with my…" He pressed his lips together and looked away. "You can have the bed. I've got some work to finish."

He grabbed his T-shirt and shrugged back into it before stalking out of the tent.

"Daniel!" Vala called after him, but he didn't even slow down. Vala sank back down onto the chair, blinking at the tears welling in her eyes. They fell slowly down her cheeks and she made no move to wipe them away.

She should have known better. Attachment only ever led to pain. It wasn't worth it. She needed to get past it, climb out of the soft place she'd found in his acceptance of her and get back to business. In the morning she would ride out of camp and back into her life. Where she belonged.

 

Daniel never came back to the tent, and Vala dozed off somewhere near dawn, waking to Hanna telling her she was going to miss her ride if she didn't get moving. Vala put her boots on and stood, glancing down at the note she'd written somewhere through the night and left on the bedside table.

It wasn't much. A promise to find him again one day and explain. A feeble attempt at soothing her own pain. She crumpled it up and threw it toward the pile of other wads of paper before grabbing her backpack and heading out to the jeep.

Daniel looked up from his breakfast, but looked away again. She wanted to wave, to say something, but before she could, the jeep was moving and her opportunity to say anything or stay behind was gone. Vala put Daniel out of her mind and turned her face forward. She had business to attend. She could play sentimental games after she'd been paid.

Professor Landis dropped Vala at the address her buyer had given her and she waved goodbye as they drove off, hitching her bag up on her shoulder before moving to knock on the door. A woman answered, her fair hair and skin marking her as a non-native to the area. "I'm here to see Aved. Tell him it's Vala."

"Come." She was led to a room that looked like the back room at a museum, with half packed crates and artefacts that just begged to be handled.

"Vala. It's about time. I was starting to think I was going to need to send some of my boys to help you find your way." 

She turned, smiling. "Aved, good to see you as always." She slipped the backpack off and fished out his box. "I just got a little sidetracked, that's all. You know how it is when you're trying to lay low."

"I know you nearly got caught."

"Never. I had an exit strategy. Here." She handed him the box. "As requested, unopened, unaltered. One plain, boring box. How about my payment?"

"I'll need to validate the contents. Wait here." He stepped away, then stopped and looked at her. "And Vala, for your own good, don't touch anything."

She held up both hands and rolled her eyes, watching him leave the room. As soon as he was gone, she turned, her eyes scanning over everything, looking for something easy to pocket and not likely to be missed right away. She turned slowly, and the edge of her backpack caught on a vase. She whirled and caught it, only to back into a crate as she put the vase back. Before she could recover, a canopic jar fell to the floor, the ancient ceramic cracking open. "Shit!" She squatted down to pick up the pieces, thinking maybe she could hide it in one of the crates, but when she picked it up, there was something strange. Where the ceramic was broken, she could see some sort of metal container. "Well, that isn't normal."

Vala stood, bringing the jar up with her, her nose crinkling a little with the smell of the ancient pottery. She looked it over, turned it around, biting her lip as she tried to decide what to do with it. In the end, she decided Aved had to be hiding _something_ of importance inside and she worked on opening it. When the seal finally gave, the jar all but leapt out of her hands and something did jump out of it.

Vala turned, trying to see what it was and more than a little concerned that something alive had been inside the jar. She tossed the jar into the nearest open crate and took a step toward the door. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement, then something flew at her and there was a sharp pain in the back of her head, knocking her to the ground.

She grabbed at her head as something burrowed into her and she screamed as the pain intensified and it felt like something was invading her body, and not just her body. She couldn't move, couldn't think clearly. Everything went dark for a long moment, and when she could see again, she was very aware that she was no longer in control.

Aved returned to the room, his eyes wide as whatever had invaded her made her stand. "Vala?"

"Bow before your god, Qetesh."

 

The rebellion was bloody and swift. Vala felt the rage her captor felt, and something else besides as the palace was overrun. Fear. For the first time since the symbiote had crawled inside of her, Vala could tell she was afraid. 

The Jaffa fell and Qetesh was captured by the angry people of the planet that the Goa'uld had ruled over like a tyrant. The days that followed were horrific as they tortured her, beating her with sticks and leather belts, and in the end, they planned to stone her.

She was certain that this was how she would die, lightyears from the only home she had ever known, alone and trapped inside a body she hadn't controlled in years…but then something happened. She wasn't sure what was going on. The first rock broke her leg and the second slammed into her shoulder sending her sprawling to the ground. No more rocks came though, and then there was a man talking to the symbiote, dragging her up and into a ship.''

It was days later before she finally understood, before the symbiote was gone and she was free again. Vala woke slowly, aware that she could move her own body, and that body hurt…everywhere but her right knee that was warm and tingling a little. She opened her eyes to find a man standing over her, a Goa'uld device in his hands, his focus on her knee. She had seen herself use one before, immediately understanding that he was healing her, and how to make the device work. He finished and looked up at her, smiling softly. 

"I am Lustaf, of the Tok'ra. You are safe."

"Safe?" Her own voice sounded strange to her after so long of only hearing Qetesh speak when her mouth moved. 

"Your wounds are healing." 

She sat up, wincing as the pain registered. "Qetesh…"

He touched her arm gently. "I removed the Goa'uld. You are free." He stepped away, letting her get a look around them. They were clearly on a ship. A small cargo ship from the feel. He had made her up a bed in the cargo hold. "You must be hungry. It has been several days since I found you." He came back to her with a cup. "It isn't much, but it is nutritious. 

"Where are we?" Vala asked, taking the cup.

"Still in orbit above the planet. I did not want to leave until you were awake. You should have some say in where you go from here."

She sipped at the thick broth and considered her options. "I suppose going home is out of the question." 

"That depends on where home is."

She shook her head. "My world has no stargate, has no idea what is out here. Besides, when I left there…" No, by now Daniel assumed she had lied about finding him again, and there wasn't much else she had to go back to. Qetesh had always planned to go back and conquer Earth, but she hadn't built up enough of an army. Vala didn't want to be the one that introduced the Earth to the Goa'uld. 

"I have nowhere to go." 

Lustaf patted her knee and offered a soft smile. "I will take you to a planet where you will be able to find work, find a home." 

She followed him out of the cargo hold and into the cockpit, taking the second seat. He put his hands on the console and she could feel the engines come to life. "You never did tell me your name."

His smile was soft and genuine and she pulled her knees up to her chest, cradling the cup of broth. "Vala," she answered, surprised by tears in her eyes at the sound of her own name. It had been a long, long time since she had heard it.

 

"Damn it."

Vala shot the last of the Jaffa that had been defending the Al'kesh, but one look at the controls was enough to tell her she was dead in the water…so to speak. Frustrated, she dropped her weapon and turned to survey what she had to work with. 

It wasn't much. But she still had the Kull warrior suit she'd used to take the Jaffa by surprise. All she had to do was wait for an unsuspecting ship to come by and then she could take that ship to trade. She never should have told the Lucian Alliance she could get them a ship.

Sure, it had gotten her out of a tight spot at the time, but here she was with the deadline approaching and she had nothing to show for it. Huffing out a sigh, Vala turned to the console to record a distress call that would hopefully pull in a ship big enough to satisfy the arrangement she had made. 

It took several hours, but she could have been sitting out there for days. She heard the call in answer to her distress call and suited up, keeping an eye on the sensors. The ship was bigger than the Al'kesh, more than big enough to satisfy her terms with the Lucian Alliance, which would net her a nice crate of weapon grade naquada, which in turn would trade nicely for almost anything she could want.

She waited impatiently for the approaching ship to get close enough to try to board. She watched the rings activate from the safety of a hidden compartment, and once the men who had ringed aboard had dispersed to search the ship, she moved in, activating the rings and sending herself onto the new ship.

She used a Zat'nik'tel, quickly stunning anyone and everyone she saw. It wasn't until she'd dragged a group of unconscious people into the rings that she realized that she was on a ship from Earth. Of course, in her time since Qetesh had been pulled from her she'd learned that Earth had found their Stargate and ventured out into the universe, but until that moment she'd only vaguely believed. 

Vala made her way through the ship, stunning anyone she found and sending them down to the Al'Kesh. The ship was bigger than she'd expected from her initial readings. She cleared the ship and made her way to the bridge to start trying to figure out how to use it.

She got the sublight engines working and turned her attention to getting the hyperdrive to come online. Her first indication she had that she wasn't alone on the ship came as a jolt of energy hit her in the back. Thankfully, the suit dispersed the energy and she turned. A second bolt hit her square in the chest and she raised her arm to fire. 

"Oh, crap." He went down before his identity had even registered.

"Daniel?" Vala frowned under the helmet. How could that even be possible. When she'd last been on Earth, Daniel was an archeology student. What was an archeologist doing on a ship in space. Then again, he'd been obsessed with ancient Egypt, which she now knew had included Goa'uld. It was conceivable that he'd somehow stumbled across something, maybe even the Stargate.

That still didn't explain how he was on her ship. 

Vala dragged him to the command chair and got him into it, then set about finding something to restrain him with. It complicated things. Him being there. But then again, it might work to her advantage. If she played it right. But that meant playing Daniel. 

She had time to figure it out. He'd be unconscious for a while. It was possible she could figure everything out she needed to and then she could just drop him off somewhere. No harm, no foul. He'd never have to know.

Except, the more she worked at getting what she wanted from the ship, the more frustrated she became. 

"Hey, how's it going?" She didn't turn right away, still uncertain how to play this. "Guess it's just you and me, huh?" Daniel sounded stressed, of course, the suit did that. It was why she had the suit in the first place. "It's a little strange, isn't it? See, that weapon I shot you with should have killed you. What's even stranger is, you guys don't usually take prisoners either. I mean it's kind of kill first and.... No, that's generally just about it. Just the killing." 

Vala smiled behind the helmet, reminded again how much she had enjoyed Daniel's company, his way of looking at things. She kind of expected more fear, but Daniel seemed determined to keep up the attempt to communicate.

"I'm just going to keep talking to myself here for a while, cause you're not gonna talk to me….not that you guys are very talkative, but, uh…"

Vala turned then. She knew how to make him uncomfortable, even if he wasn't afraid. "You may prove useful," she said. 

Daniel looked a little shocked as he murmured under his breath, but he wasn't giving up. "Where's everybody else?"

"I transported them onto the Al'kesh." 

"Well, you kept the wrong guy, because I don't know anything about the ship."

Vala moved toward him slowly. "But you are very attractive." That seemed to have stunned him some.

Daniel coughed and closed his eyes as she came even closer. "What?" Vala stepped up onto the platform and Daniel pulled on the zip ties holding him to the chair, pulling away from her. "Hey, hey, I'm flattered, really I am…it's just that…ah…you're not my type…ah…and I'm more than a little disturbed that I might be yours…"

Vala leaned forward and started to remove the helmet, which only made Daniel pull away harder, his head turning away and his eyes closed. "No, no, you don't have to do that…"

She shook her hair back and waited for him to open his eyes, and when he did, she smiled at him. "Hello Daniel."

He blinked at her in apparent disbelief. "Don't worry. I'm not going to hurt you."

His eyes narrowed and closed, then opened again. "Vala?" 

"More or less." She smiled again, but he wasn't so happy to see her.

"What the hell…how…"

"We'll have time for that later." Vala said, turning to start pulling off the armor. "I wish to send a long range message, using the communications systems."

"Sorry, don't have a clue."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're lying."

Daniel raised his own eyebrow. "You would know about lying, wouldn't you? You do it so well."

Vala slapped him before she could think better of it and Daniel yelled in surprise. "Ow!"

"Shall I kiss it better?" Vala asked, annoyed with him being there, with him judging her when she clearly had the upper hand.

"Just don't do it again. Hey look, even if I knew what it is you wanted me to do, what makes you think I'd tell you? How the hell do you think you can steal a ship when you don't know how it works?"

"I got the sublight engines going." Vala said.

"Yeah, so you did" Daniel said dryly. "How are you here?"

Vala turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes. "So, you're not going to tell me?"

"Tell you what? What is it you think I know?"

She moved to the seat next to his and sat down. "Okay, the short version…after I left you in Egypt, I ran into a Goa'uld symbiote who decided to come live in my head. She had a hidden ship, we flew away."

"You're a Goa'uld?"

Vala shook her head, looking at the console in front of her. "No, not anymore."

"What? How?"

"I don't have time for this." 

"Vala, you can't just take this ship. We were on our way to rescue friends--"

"Oh, I really don't care." Vala said, focusing now on finding the communications system.

"Look, this really isn't necessary—"

"No, Daniel? If I'd just asked for the ship you would have handed it over?" 

"Well, no."

"So I took it." She brought her hand down on the console and it beeped, a message on the screen telling her that the communications system was active. "Oh. Here we go. Tenat of Oran. Tenat, this is Vala, if you can hear me, please respond. I've managed to procure a vessel, bigger and better than what I hoped for. Tenat, if you get this message, I apologize for the delay and will meet at the designated coordinates in one day. Vala out."

She turned to look at Daniel. He was still confused and angry. Keeping him tied up wasn't helping. But if she let him go, he'd stop her and that would be bad. "You have no reason to believe me." Vala said, getting up. "And I'm sorry it has to be this way, but I need this ship. If I don't deliver it, the Lucian Alliance will kill me."

"If I get out of these zip ties, I may do it for them." Daniel growled.

"I'm going to go see about getting the hyperdrive working. You just sit tight. I'll be back."

 

It took some doing, but with the knowledge left behind by the Goa'uld, Vala managed to get around the hyperdrive command code and reprogram it so that no matter what happened, only she could control the hyperdrive. "Much better."

"Lose the weapon. Move away from the console." 

Vala lifted both hands and turned. Daniel had gotten loose and was holding a Zat gun on her. 

"I liked you better tied up." 

"Yeah, well, I liked you better when you weren't stealing from me." Daniel responded. "Against the wall. Lose the weapon."

Vala pulled the Kull warrior's weapon from her hand and peeled the glove off. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I should zat you and put you in the brig." Daniel said, moving over to the console and entering the command code. "What's going on?" Daniel asked when the code was rejected. 

"I rewrote the access codes, so I'm the only one who can use the navigation systems."

Daniel lifted his gun a little higher. "Undo it." He frowned as the console started beeping, leaning closer. 

"What is it?"

Daniel frowned harder. "A ship just appeared on our radar. It's an Al'kesh."

"This quadrant is crawling with Goa'uld vessels. Chances are it's not your friends. That ship was fully disabled when you showed up." The chances were good that the approaching ship was Lucian Alliance or some other half-baked coalition of mercenaries and power-mongering assholes that would shoot first and never really worry about asking questions. "Daniel we have to raise shields and arm weapons." 

"I'm going to hail them first."

She was pretty sure he wouldn't kill her, but there was no telling if he'd hit her with the zat or not. As he moved, she kicked, sending the gun skittering away. Vala took a swing, not really wanting to hurt him, but she needed to get the upper hand. He stumbled back and she moved in to hit him again, only this time he was ready for her and blocked it, hitting her in the nose with his elbow. "Ow. You hit me!" The Daniel she had known all those years before never would have hit her. 

"Yeah, well, you hit me." Daniel looked confused, but wary. 

"You know, we could just have sex instead." Vala offered. He shook his head.

"Been there, done that. Was a mistake the first time around. I don't like to repeat mistakes." 

"A mistake?" Vala was genuinely appalled. "Daniel, you know I never meant to…"

"What, to make me believe you had changed? That you cared about anyone other than yourself? Don't try it Vala. I'm not buying it this time around."

"Fine. Have it your way, but I genuinely need to deliver this ship."

"Over my dead body." Daniel said.

She took a swing, but missed and by the time she had turned around, Daniel had the zat leveled at her. "Daniel--" 

"Fix whatever you did to the hyperdrive." 

Vala crossed her arms. "No."

"Fix it now."

"Make me."

"Dr. Jackson, this is Hammond, do you read?"

Daniel smiled. "So much for that ship not being my friends. Good night Vala."

She gasped as the zat blast hit her, crumpling to the floor as unconsciousness fell.

 

They weren't moving when she came to, probably still sorting through the mess she'd made of the navigation system. Vala stretched and stood, looking around the small room, clearly their on board prison cell. 

There was a camera in the corner. Vala looked up into it, then looked away.

She needed to get away, before they moved too far from the Al'kesh. If she could just get to the rings…the ship shuddered, then did it again.

Outside her door sirens were going off and she could hear people moving. "Daniel! Daniel, let me out. I'll fix the hyperdrive." Vala called out. For a long moment nothing happened, then Daniel was there, the zat in his hand.

"Go."

He prodded her out and herded her toward engineering. The ship lurched under their feet as they ran. Vala pushed the tech out of the way and entered the series of commands that would return the hyperdrive systems to their defaults, as they had been before she'd rewritten the codes. 

"There."

Daniel looked at the tech who nodded. "Give me a few minutes to reinitialize." 

"Daniel--"

He pressed a finger to her lips and then shoved her toward the door. The ship lurched again under enemy fire and she took the opportunity to push Daniel backwards and make a run for the rings. She almost didn't expect to reach them, but Daniel didn't catch up before she'd activated them and jumped into the center. She saw him at the door as the rings activated and offered him a smile, actually sorry that she was once again running away from him.

 

"So, what you're telling me is that this tablet contains the hidden location of a treasure and you're not going to go after it?" Vala asked, fairly certain he was putting her on.

"No, I'm saying I haven't finished translating it and that there are serious considerations in pursuing it. The treasure is on a world where the Stargate is heavily guarded and housed in a military complex."

"And you're telling me this, why exactly?" Vala sat back, but kept her eye on the tablet.

"My sources say that you might have a way in. Say a ship, and a familiarity with the planet? He's willing to cut you in, say forty percent?"

Vala toyed with her cup and looked around the tavern. "Where?"

The Jaffa leaned forward conspiratorially. "Earth. The home of the Tauri."

Vala laughed. "Oh, I see. That explains a lot." She shook her head and reached for the tablet. He pulled it away. She raised an eyebrow. "Fine, tell your master I said no."

She stood, and he grabbed her hand. "Not so fast."

She pulled her arm free and sat back down. "I like you Aphis. I tell you what I'm willing to do, I'll give you a crate of weapons grade, refined naquada, you give me the tablet, and your cipher."

"I can't do that."

"Look, you can't get to the treasure, which makes that tablet worthless to you. Take the naquada, that should get your master some respect. I'll even throw in an Al'kesh I've been holding on to. I know Barinthus must be going crazy stuck here on this rock." 

"I don't know. I'll have to get his approval."

Vala stood again, her hands on the table. "I'm leaving in the morning. You have until then."

Of course, she could just steal the tablet, but it would be easier to translate with the cipher. She knew just enough about Ancient to know she couldn't translate it herself. In fact, she only knew one person who could.

Unfortunately, he wasn't likely to help her, if the way their last interaction had ended was any indication. She'd taken the time since then to do some research. Daniel Jackson was not the same man she had known all those years before. She only had the vaguest sketch of his life since the Earth had gotten it's Stargate to work, and it was easy to see why he'd changed.

Still, if the treasure was as big as Aphis claimed, it would have significant historical value, and that was something the Daniel Jackson she knew wouldn't be able to walk away from. She just needed to make sure he didn't side line her before they got to it…and for that, Vala knew exactly what she needed. She just needed to get them.

She left the tavern, confident that in the morning she'd unload the Al'kesh that had kept a mark on her back for months, as well as the naquada she'd smuggled out of Lucian Alliance territory and be well on her way to a return trip to Earth and a chance to see if she could salvage anything of the old friendship…and get her hands on ancient treasure while she was at it.

 

It took more time than she anticipated, finding a way to contact Earth and Daniel. And when she had, Vala had a moment of hesitation, after all, she had no way of knowing whether Daniel would even see her, or whether they'd put her in prison for the attempt to steal their ship.

It was a run in with the Lucian Alliance that pushed her into keeping the meeting though, because she knew that they would never pursue her to Earth. She was alone then, on the designated planet when a group came through the Stargate wearing the familiar uniforms of the US Air Force.

"I'm Major Hadden, of SG12, our orders are to make sure you're not carrying weapons and escort you through the gate."

"It must be my lucky day." Vala said, holding up both hands. She giggled as one of them felt over her tight fitting leather, as if she could hide _anything_ in that outfit. One of them picked up the case she'd left at her feet, and she reached for it, opening it herself. "No offense boys, but I'll hold on to that if you don't mind." 

"She's clean, sir."

"Alright, dial us home."

Vala waited for the gate to swoosh open, glancing behind her. She was going home, something she hadn't believed possible even a few months before.

She took a deep breath and stepped through the gate, into a large metal room with a dozen guns leveled at her. She raised an eyebrow as she stepped down the ramp. "Well, don't you all have me surrounded." Vala said with amusement, raising her hands.

"Welcome to the SGC. I'm General Landry."

"Vala. Vala Mal Doran." She stopped at the end of the ramp, glancing over her shoulder at the men following behind her. "Thank you so much for the lovely greeting party. We all had a wonderful time searching each other, didn't we, boys." Vala felt eyes and turned to the man beside the general. "I know we haven't met. That I'm sure I would remember."

"Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell," the general offered and Vala smiled.

The man cocked his head to one side and clearly gave her the once over. "Nice outfit."

"Thanks!" Vala stepped through them, looking around the room. Daniel was nowhere to be seen. "While I would normally be thrilled to have so much testosterone at my disposal…Where's my Daniel?"

"He'll be joining us in just a minute." General Landry said. "He's busy at the moment. Please, come this way."

Vala followed the General and the Lieutent Colonel out the door and up a flight of stairs into a room with a long table and a view of the gate. She set the case holding the tablet on the table and crossed to look out the window. She turned back just as Daniel came striding into the room, looking scruffy and annoyed. Vala smiled and took the few steps back toward the table.

"Okay, where is it?" Daniel asked.

Vala frowned. She'd expected some residual anger, but not flat out hostility. "Nice to see you too? How have you been?"

"The tablet! The one that leads to the 'incredible Ancient buried treasure.'" Daniel practically growled.

It bothered her enough to be difficult. "There is no tablet." 

"What?" Daniel was furious, she could see it. 

She smiled. "I lied. I had to tell you in person this time. I'm pregnant." Mitchell was gaping at her, but Daniel clenched his fists and glared. "Pretty sure it's yours, anyway. There's at least a one in……hmm…ten chance?" She winked at Mitchell and watched Daniel spin on his heel to leave. He stopped in the doorway and turned back, his face all scrunched up. 

"Wait. This time?" 

She shrugged and he stalked back toward her. "What are you saying?"

"You always were too gullible for your own good." Vala said. Daniel headed for the door again, but this time Landry called him back. 

"Dr. Jackson! You're the reason we let her through the gate."

"I'm sorry, sir. I really have to finish packing…"

Landry stood and adjusted his uniform, stepping around Daniel. "The Daedalus doesn't leave for another 12 hours. At least have a look."

Mitchell opened the case and Vala lifted the tablet out of the case. Daniel looked dejected as he came back to the table and stood next to Mitchell. She offered the tablet to Daniel and he snatched it from her hand, looking over and then shaking his head. "Yep, I don't know where you got this, but uh, you got ripped off. It's complete gibberish." He handed it back, but Vala just crossed her arms.  
"It's written in code."

Daniel sighed and looked it over again as Mitchell stood to look over his shoulder. "Well, I can't crack this in a few hours."

Vala smiled. "I know the cipher."

Daniel was clearly less than impressed, grinding his words between his teeth as he spoke. "Then why do you need me?"

"Well, reading it is one thing, understanding it is another. The individual I got this from assured me that the treasure it describes is here on Earth. Now, I could have come by ship and looked for it myself, but that was always your area of expertise."

"My area of expertise." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "In other words, you couldn't get a ship that would make the journey and you wouldn't know where to start."

She shrugged. "I was always better at finding things that were…less hidden."

Daniel licked his lips, but Vala could tell he was intrigued. "Fine, but I'm leaving on the Daedalus in twelve hours."

"Then we better hurry."

Daniel huffed and looked up at her, seeming to give in. "Come on."

She grabbed the case and followed him through maze like corridors to an elevator and then through more corridors until they finally entered an office that was in quite a state of disarray. Boxes sat, some taped shut, others half full. Artefacts bearing tags were grouped together. "Don't touch anything." Daniel said as he went to the table in the center with the tablet. "So, where did you get this?"

Vala set the case down on the table, then continued inventorying the room. "The Jaffa may have won their freedom, but there's still more than a few Goa'uld out there. Most of them have lost their dynasties, though, and they're either on the run or in hiding.

"Yeah, no doubt plotting some means of regaining their power."

"Yes, and in the meantime, they are having a lot of trouble maintaining the lifestyle to which they've grown so accustomed over the last 5,000 years or so. As such, there are a number of rather interesting artifacts currently on the market."

She circled back to his side of the table, watching him closely. "Anyway, that isn't the issue. The question is, what's it worth?"

"Well, the Ancients aren't exactly known for secret stashes of gold." He set the tablet down and pulled the case closer, frowning at the remaining pieces. "Like these, for example." He lifted one, tilting it to the light and looking confused. Vala reached for the other one, sliding a little closer. "Wait, these markings are Goa'uld. If the treasure is supposed to be ancient, what do these have to do with it?"

"These are actually only loosely related to the tablet." Vala said coyly.

"Yeah? How?"

"Have you ever heard of the Goa'uld Nut?"

"As in cashew? Pea? Oh, you mean the Egyptian sky goddess?" He was clearly annoyed and her window was going to close soon if she didn't make a move. "No, never heard of her."

"Well, these were her ceremonial marriage bracelets. She wore one and her husband of the moment wore one."

That at least had interested him a little and he studied the bracelet a little closer. "Of the moment."

"Yes, she had many. It's one of the few admirable things about her." Vala was close enough now and she slapped the bracelet in her hand over Daniel's wrist, snatching the other one from him and stepping back. 

"Ow. What are you doing?" He tried to pull the bracelet off, struggling and grunting as he stepped back toward the door. "Security."

Two men entered, their guns drawn. Daniel kept struggling, then held his wrist out to her. "Okay, that was fun. Now take it off." 

"Not until we find the treasure." Vala answered.

"What!?!"

"These bracelets…" She slapped the matching bracelet down on her wrist, holding it up for him to see, "link us together. The tablet is mine, and I want my fair share of what it leads to. "

 

Of course, nothing ever really worked out the way she planned it, and Daniel managed to rebuff every effort she made at reconciliation, even told her she was not to mention anything about their previous relationship to anyone.

It might not have been so bad if they had actually followed through and given her a portion of the treasure once they'd found it or if the bracelets had actually worked the way the Jaffa she had stolen them from had told her they did and she hadn't found herself linked to a man who wanted absolutely nothing to do with her.

Daniel had kicked her out of his office, _again_ and she was moping in the mess hall when Mitchell came in. "What's the matter, Jackson kick you out again?"

"You know, it didn't used to be like this. There was a time he actually wanted me around."

Mitchell grabbed a bottle of water and straddled the chair opposite her. "Oh really, when was this? While you were stealing Prometheus?"

She crossed her arms and sat back, forgetting for the moment that she was sworn to secrecy. "Before that, before Qetesh."

That got his attention. "Wait a minute, you're saying you knew Jackson…" He seemed to be doing math in his head. "No, that can't be right. That would have been before the Stargate was even operational."

Vala played idly with the bits of torn napkin on her tray, nodding. "Oh, yeah…years before. First time I saw him, I---" Suddenly Daniel's angry face filled her mind and she stopped, wide eyed. "I mean, obviously I'm just making up stories. It's what I do. I have to go."

She stood and made for her room, but he was right behind her. "Not so fast."

She put both hands on his chest and pressed her lips together. "If he finds out I said anything, he's going to kill me. He already hates me."

"He doesn't hate you." Mitchell countered, resuming following her as she tried to get away.

"He does. I can't really say that I blame him, the way I left."

"You lived on Earth before." Mitchell said.

She stopped, dropping her shoulders in defeat. "I grew up on Earth, if you must know. Daniel and I met in a foster home. There, satisfied?"

"Not in the least. What's the story?"

Vala drew herself up, determined to at least retain something of the secret. "You'll have to ask him. I'm not saying."

She opened the door to her room and closed it behind herself without looking back. She huffed and paced the confines of her room before crossing to the table where there was a small stack of clean clothes that had been offered to her for her stay. Most of it was the drab military clothes she was already wearing, but then a flash of red caught her eye. She pulled some slinky lingerie out of the stack and an idea began to form.

She had tried to reach Daniel with the puzzle, with the mystery, with everything but her best asset. Maybe if she could get him to see past her previous betrayals with a more physical approach, she could finally make this work.

She waited until shortly before she expected Daniel to head back to his room and slipped out of hers with a robe on over the lingerie. She winked at the guard as she let herself into Daniel's room and slipped off the robe, sliding into his bed and pulling the covers up to hide herself.

She didn't have long to wait. Daniel opened the door and turned on the light, stopping cold when he saw her.

"Hello." Vala said in what she hoped was a seductive voice.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Daniel responded, his forehead scrunching up.

"Isn't this my room?" Vala asked sweetly. 

Daniel waved at the door behind him, still frowning at her. "No, your room is across the hall with the guard in front of it." Daniel looked from her to the door and back again.

This wasn't exactly how she'd imagined this working. "Ah yes, they do all rather look alike, don't they? Anyhow, since I'm here, shall we make the best of it?" She threw the covers back and posed with a wink.

Daniel actually stepped backward and shook his head. "No, we shalln't."

Vala sat up, moving onto her hands and knees and crawling toward him. "Come on, Daniel. Remember how good it was? You and me, nothing between us but sweat…"

"I remember." Daniel said, moving away from the bed. "I also remember you leaving to chase some payday that probably never came."

It was Vala's turn to pull away. "As a matter of fact it didn't, because before I could get what was promised to me, I was invaded by a Goa'uld. Thanks for the reminder."

"Oh." Daniel looked like he'd actually forgotten that part, that no matter what she had planned, once Qetesh was in play, there was no way Vala was coming back to him. "I'm sorry."

She crossed her arms. "So am I." She felt ridiculous standing there like that, so she reached for her robe.

"Vala, wait." He reached for her, but she pulled away.

"No, Daniel, obviously it was too much to think that you might want to try to get that back again, that I'd be allowed to revisit the happiest time in my life…" She was actually choking up, and she didn't want to be that woman. She shoved her arms into her robe and pulled it closed.

"Vala, stop." She risked a glance up. He looked softer somehow, like maybe he was finally considering the possibility that maybe she wasn't playing some angle. "A lot has happened since then. I'm not the same man I was."

She pushed past him and opened the door. "Yeah, I've noticed." She started to walk away, but stopped, glancing over her shoulder at him. "I'm not the same either, Daniel. A lot has happened to me too. I loved you once. I thought maybe you'd felt the same. I guess I was wrong." She closed the door and hurried across the hall to her own room. 

She heard Daniel call her name, but she ignored him, closing the door behind her as the tears started to fall.

 

"I told you, it was a bad idea letting him come here and you can't trust a single thing he says." Vala argued.

"It wasn't my call." Daniel argued back, taking the folder from her again. "Why don't you do something ….else. Somewhere else. Sam should be here--"

"Right about now."

Vala whirled and stumbled back a step, her mind suddenly going a little blank. Daniel didn't seem to have the same problem, hugging the newcomer with a wide smile. "Sam, it's good to see you."'

"You too." They separated and Sam turned to Vala, her eyes bright and sparkling. "Hello Vala."

"Sam…Samantha…I didn't make the connection." Vala said, still stunned. 

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me." Sam said, turning slightly pink and tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

Vala took a hesitant step forward, her face heating up too. "How could I…you…"

"Wait, you two know each other?" Daniel asked.

"It was a long time ago." Sam said. "And it's a long story that we don't have time for right now. We have an Ori incursion to stop." Sam smiled and the heat in Vala's face increased. "When we get back."

Vala didn't even know how to respond, so she just nodded.

"How did you do that?" Daniel asked as they headed out of the room. "I've been trying to get her to shut up for weeks."

Vala didn't even rise to the jibe, she was too busy analyzing the heat in her stomach and other places. Samantha Carter was the last person she'd expected to run into. When they'd said goodbye, Samantha was off to the Air Force Academy, sure, but somehow Vala always imagined her in the public space program, not something so secret as the Stargate program. 

It wasn't until she was finishing getting into her gear that Vala looked up to find that she and Sam were alone in the locker room. "You haven't said much." Sam observed. 

"You caught me by surprise." Vala said, smiling. "A good surprise."

Sam grinned. "The first time Daniel told me your name, I could only think about that last day, before you left." Her cheeks turned pink. "But, it was so long ago. I really wasn't sure if you'd remember." She bit her lip in that same adorable way she had all those years before.

Vala stood and crossed to her side. "I've thought of you often," she said softly. "I've missed you often."

"I meant what I said, when we get back, I want to spend some time catching up."

"I'd like that." Vala agreed.

 

Vala realized just a little too late that her heroic act, while successful, was not going to end well for her. She stumbled into the ring transporter, but knew as the energy crackled around her, she was going to be lucky to live through it.

Lightning arced around her as the rings activated and Vala closed her eyes, praying just to live through it. Everything around her exploded and she felt like she was being sucked into a dark hole…and then there was nothing.

Her next awareness was one of pain. She was stretched and broken, pieces held together by skin. Which meant she was alive. She opened one eye, but the light was too much and there wasn't much to see.

The pain overwhelmed her and she fell back into the depths of dark punctuated by voices calling her name, voices she thought she should know, but none of them came close enough to hold on to.

She wasn't sure exactly what brought her up from the dark next, but everything was different. She could tell she was in a soft bed, with warm blankets. She still hurt. Like her body had been pulled in all directions until everything snapped back together.

Vala opened her eyes slowly, hoping to find herself in the infirmary as she had so many times before, but instead of the sterile surroundings and Daniel's grumpy face, she was in a room that was vaguely familiar, rustic and simple. She heard a door open and turned her head.

The man who stood there looked surprised, but he smiled. "You're awake. I was beginning to worry." He carried a tray into the room and set it on the bed beside her legs. "I knew the Ori would not have sent you to me only for you to die."

Vala swallowed hard. "The Ori?"

He smiled again. "I was walking and found you lying unconscious on the ground. I knew that the Ori had sent you to me. I brought you here and I have cared for you. I will continue to care for you until you are well again."

"I…thank you." Vala said, her head reeling. If she'd been sucked through the wormhole…she could actually be in the Ori's galaxy. Which might explain how she was feeling. That kind of a journey by rings could likely do some damage to a body. "You may have saved my life. I'm Vala."

He smiled and blushed lightly. "I am Tomin. I brought some water for you and a warm broth, if you're able." He came around the side of the bed and helped her sit up before pulling the tray closer. He sat gingerly beside her and lifted the cup of water. "I've only managed to get a small amount into you these last few days." 

She sipped at the water, taking almost half of it before sitting back. "How long have I been here?"

"It will be three days come this afternoon." Tomin said. "Would you like to try the broth?"

Vala nodded and let him help her drink it, but she was already feeling tired and it seemed Tomin understood. "You should rest more. I will leave you the water, and be just downstairs, should you need anything."

 

Vala bit her lip, pacing the small kitchen area, uncomfortable in the clothes Tomin had brought her. She mostly had her strength back, but there was something else not right. Well, that was an understatement. The whole situation was completely in the category of not right.

There was Seevis, who she half expected to come storming through the door to haul her into the square for a proper burning. There was Tomin, who was hopelessly doe eyed over her and believed anything and everything she said without fail.

And there was the fact that she was increasingly becoming convinced that she was pregnant. Which made even less sense than any of the rest. She was fairly certain that she would remember having sex at **any** point in recent months, but considering that her last attempt had ended in tears… 

She knew she'd have to do _something_ and the only thing that made logical sense, not that any of it did, was to get Tomin to sleep with her so she could at least pass that off as the reason she was pregnant. Which was going to mean convincing him to marry her, because she was pretty sure it was the only way he'd touch her.

And somehow, she had to find her way back to her own galaxy.

She inhaled slowly and let it out. One thing at a time. Don't die because you're impossibly pregnant.

 

It was a huge risk, but one she had to take. She held her stomach as she sat down at the table and put the stone into the device. Almost instantly she was looking at Daniel's face in the mirror. "Right. Sam." She finished washing his hands and dried them, glancing around the locker room. "Don't get distracted, Vala," she mumbled, but she stopped when she saw Mitchell just finishing shaving. She smirked at him in the mirror above him, tilting her head.

"Jackson? Is there something I should know?"

She was tempted, but she knew that she was in danger and could be discovered at any moment. She rolled her eyes. "Get dressed. I need you to come with me to find Sam."

She was surprised how easy it was to convince them that it was her, but then, Sam was brilliant. She wasted as little time as possible, well, other than asking for food, and having to back track after Mitchell told her to fast forward. 

"They are building ships and armies by the tens of thousands. The village I am living in is one of many, on a world among dozens like it." She shook her, well, Daniel's head. "Even Tomin has been conscripted. They healed his limp and everything. He's so…gentle and trusting and they're going to turn him into a killer." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. 

Sam smiled at her when she opened her eyes again. "Since you've been gone, we've learned a few things about the Ori that their followers might be interested to know."

"It doesn't matter what the truth is about the Ori. The people won't hear it, no matter what you say." Vala said. 

"Obviously, some of them are suspicious enough to form a resistance." Mitchell said.

"You're talking about a handful of people compared to millions who wouldn't know the truth if it were standing right in front of them. It's all lies and propaganda as far as they're concerned. We're wrong, they're right. They're good, we're bad. We must worship the Ori or die, and they will fight until we are dead or they are. Period." It was hopeless, and she knew it. "Even the underground knows they can't win this, not on their own. They tried to blow up the ships, but someone must have found out. Nothing happened."

"So how are you using the stones?" Sam asked.

"The underground had spies in Celestus that smuggled them and the device out. The ships are working, I saw them just this morning. And Tomin." Her breath caught in her chest and she had to force air out and breathe in again. "His last words to me before going out to the ships were that a day of reckoning was coming for all those who were raised by evil."

"When you say 'day of reckoning'…" Mitchell said, turning to look at Sam.

"We've heard numerous reports of the Priors in this galaxy warning of an impending doomsday." Sam offered.

"A day when all who have renounced the Ori will feel their wrath." Teal'c added.

"We knew the Priors were just the first wave. The real Crusade is about to begin. The ships are planning to leave." Vala said.

Sam looked worried. "But that would mean—"  
Vala nodded. "Somewhere out there the Ori have a working Supergate."

 

She had thought it would be harder to convince Tomin, and for that matter, the Priors to let her come aboard the ships. She hadn't quite figured out yet that she was nothing more than a pawn in their game, a means of circumventing the unwritten rules of ascended beings…provided they really did have rules and weren't just fucking with everyone's heads.

That understanding came as the labor started, and the child she was unwillingly carrying began to rip its way out of her body, as she finally expelled the child and the nurses brought along to see her through labor and delivery summarily left with the child, leaving her bleeding and wanting to hold her to be told that her child was some kind of Ori savior.

Now though, now it was painfully obvious that while she may have given birth to the child standing… _STANDING_ in front of her, Vala had been nothing more than a convenient vessel for the Ori to come to this galaxy in the form of a human spokesman. Child.

Although at the rate she was growing, she wouldn't be a child long.

"I know why you believe what you do. The Ancients are the ones who have lied to you. They are the ones who long ago tried to destroy the Ori for their beliefs. Not the other way around. Only the Ori share all they learn. The Ancients have kept the basic truths of your existence from you." She was very passionate for a child less than a day from being born.

Vala stood and moved toward the door. Behind her, Adria stood as well. "They have hoarded their knowledge and been dishonest about everything! Contrary to what they've told you, the Ori most certainly do ascend their followers. And the Ancients are the ones sapping energy from humans in this galaxy, to empower themselves! That is why they created you. To give them the strength to destroy the Ori once and for all. That is why all those who cannot be made to see the true Path, must be destroyed, or all will be lost…to evil." 

Vala was irritated and was starting to have a better appreciation for her own parents and what she must have been like as a child. She took a deep breath. "Are you saying this is a preemptive strike? It's self-defense?" 

Adria crossed her arms and tilted her head just so. It was a posture Vala knew well. "It matters not what you call it. The cause is just, and the truth will see us through to victory."

"Do you really believe that? Or are you just hoping I will?"

That at least seemed to give her pause. "Why don't you believe me, Mother?"  
Vala sighed. Maybe it was because she was the Orici, whatever that was supposed to mean, or maybe it was because she was also Vala's daughter. "I don't know."

"You choose to take the word of an Ancient over your daughter. What have the Ancients done to earn your trust?"

"About as much as you." Vala responded.

Adria was clearly annoyed with her as well. "In the end, only you can decide the fate of your own soul."

Vala nodded. "At least we agree on something."

She let herself out of the room, rubbing at her forehead as she made her way through the halls to her own. She opened the door, wanting to scream her frustration out or something, but knowing it wouldn't do her any good and could get her into more trouble. 

The door was no sooner closed than she sensed she wasn't alone and she whirled around, blinking several times when she found a man in a hood standing behind her with a gun. Before she could even scream, a hand pushed the hood back and revealed Daniel. She frowned and opened her mouth to say something, but he beat her to it.

"Long story."

"Are you alone?" Vala asked, hoping he would say no and that there was some plan underway to stop the Ori and rescue her.

"Yes. What happened to you?"

She frowned, looking from him to the gun he's still pointing at her."What do you mean?" His eyes moved pointedly to her belly and back up at her and understanding dawned on her. "Oh! I had a baby." She moved away from the door. "You know, I never thought I'd agree with my grandfather, angry old coot, but now I'm starting to remember about how he used to go on about 'you nurture them, and then you raise them, and you teach them the best that you can, and then all they do is break your hearts.' I always assumed that his experience was just tainted by me." 

Daniel dropped the gun and made a face. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, she started of out all sweet and innocent to begin with, and now she's hell-bent on domination of the galaxy."

"What? How old is she?"  
"A few hours." She shook her head. "The Ori used me to sneak one of their own over the border. This child is their way of cheating the ascended rulebook. Well they couldn't exactly encroach on our galaxy themselves without getting into a confrontation with the Ancients, right?"

Daniel nodded, but still looked confused. 

"So they created their own human representative, with their knowledge, to lead their armies."

"Sort of an uber-Prior, like the Doci?" Daniel asked.

"Oh, but she's much worse than that! The Priors are just pawns. She knows the score. She's complicit with the Ori. You should have heard the propaganda that she just tried to feed me." 

"Wait, wait, wait. We're talking about a baby here, right?"

"Oh, she's been genetically altered. She'll be a fully grown figurehead in a day or so."

"This is bad." Daniel said, shaking his head now too. "This is bad."

"Hello, I'm the one who's been living with that….child inside me. After saving your collective asses, I might remind you."

Daniel sighed and hung his head. "Yes, and we were all very grateful. Do you have any idea where we're going?"

Vala bit her lip for a moment. "No. That she wouldn't tell me. She knows I'm not on her side. She's still hoping I'll see the light. But part of her can't help but feel tied to me. She wanted me to give her a name."

"And?"

"Adria. Told her it was my mother's."

"Not?"

"First foster mother. Witch of a woman." Vala paced, going over her last encounter with Adria in her mind. "She has the knowledge of Ascended Beings, twisted as it may be, but I sense that there is a part of her that is just like any other kid, that wants her mother's approval. So I'm hoping I can use that somehow. I mean, why else would she care what I think, right?"

"Well, right now I'm a little more concerned about getting off this ship. I mean, there's only so long I can hide."  
Vala could hear Tomin coming and saw his shadow at the door. "Hide."

"Yeah."

"Hide!"

Daniel jumped and rolled off the far side of the bed and slid under it just as the door opened. Tomin looked like he was ready to fall down he was so tired. Vala smiled at him. "Hi. Long day?"

Tomin rubbed over his face and seemed to sag as he took a step toward the bed. "Uh, I'm exhausted. Uh, I see you're up and around."

Vala tried to distract him when he looked like he was going to circle the bed, but when he didn't respond, she got aggressive, pushing him back onto the mattress and climbing on top of him, grinning down at him. "Yes, I'm much better." She kissed him playfully, and while he didn't respond enthusiastically, he didn't push her off of him either.

That was progress of a kind. All she needed to do was keep him distracted enough that he didn't realize Daniel was there…without resorting to anything that would be difficult between them later. She didn't have to worry about that at least. Tomin was too tired and she ended up with her head in his lap as they spoke of her disbelief and his devotion.

"Why are you here with me if you doubt my devotion?" Vala asked softly.

"Because I love you. Because I'm still hoping I can save your soul." Tomin responded, leaning down to kiss her softly.

The lighting changed suddenly and sirens started to sound. Tomin helped her sit up and stood. "What is it? Where are you going?"

"I'm called to duty." Tomin nodded to her and left.

Vala rubbed her forehead. "And here I was hoping I could save him."

Daniel was up and moving around. The ship was slowing and in the hallways she could hear the sounds of men marching.

"Not much of a firefight." Daniel observed from the window.

Vala moved to open the door and peek out. A column of soldiers marched by. She watched for a minute, then closed the door and turned back to Daniel. "Looks like the ground incursion is about to begin ."

Daniel looked over his shoulder at her. "We're on Chulak." He took a step away from the window and turned to her. "With most of the warriors out there fighting Jaffa, we might be able to get off the ship undetected."

"We have an opportunity here." Vala said, gesturing toward Adria's room down the hall.

"Yes, I was thinking that, but we don't know what powers that child might have."

Vala licked her lips, not sure where the sudden urge to protect the child was coming from. "She is the key to the whole invasion. If we could somehow capture her, take her with us, turn her against the Ori, then she would become the most powerful weapon we could have against them."

Daniel looked unconvinced. "That's a big if."

"You got anything better?" Vala asked, knowing the answer was no. "Look, I know we need to think about getting out of here, and far be it from me to argue against self-preservation, but she's only going to get stronger and more powerful as she gets bigger."

Daniel nodded, still not looking entirely convinced. "Okay, we try it, but--"

Vala didn't wait for him to finish. "You're going to need a better disguise."

 

As plans went, it wasn't her best, she knew that. It might have worked if Tomin hadn't come in, if…No, she wasn't going to kid herself anymore. They were lucky to have lived. If Daniel hadn't grabbed her when he did she would be dead, like the rest of Chulak.

She wiped the stray tear away and rubbed the bandages on her stomach. There was a part of her that knew Daniel was right, he should have shot Adria when he had the chance. And yet, there was another part of her that wanted to save Adria, to somehow reach through to the human child under all of the Ori programming.

Vala sniffed and wiped her eyes as the door opened and Sam peeked in. "Can I come in?"

Vala smiled and pushed herself up a little straighter. "Sam."

"Are you okay?" Sam asked as she got close enough that she could tell Vala had been crying.

Vala nodded. "I will be. It's been a tough couple of months."

Sam lifted her hip to sit on the end of the bed. "I can only imagine."

Vala ran her fingers over her cheeks and up through her hair, realizing she must look frightful. "Not exactly how I wanted this reunion to happen." Vala said, shaking her head. 

Sam's hand was on her thigh and even through the thin infirmary blankets Vala could feel the heat of her skin. "You look great." Sam assured her. "Considering everything you've been through in the last forty eight hours, you look…incredible." She smiled and blushed a little. "We should be back on Earth soon."

"And then what?" Vala asked softly.

"And then we try to find a way to fight, we find their weakness." Sam said, just as quietly. "It's what we do." 

"Maybe you didn't see what I saw out there. The Ori don't seem to have much in the way of weakness." Vala said, a little more bitterly than she meant to. 

Sam's hand rubbed her thigh and Vala looked up. She had forgotten how beautiful Samantha Carter was. Even here, with the terrible lighting and the galaxy at war and all the years between them, somehow Vala felt like she did at nineteen, laying on the grass with Sam on that last day.

Sam cleared her throat and Vala blinked. "I'm sorry. I was staring." Vala said. "You--I'd forgotten how beautiful you are."

Sam blushed more and moved her hand to cover Vala's. "You know, when Daniel first told me your name I was sure it couldn't really be you, but then I thought, 'how many Vala Mal Dorans can there be?'…turns out, only one."

Vala turned her hand under Sam's, pressing their palms together. "I'm sorry." Vala said, surprising herself.

"For what?" Sam asked, tangling their fingers together.

"I lied to you." Vala said, swallowing hard. "When I left…I was…" She blinked and pulled her hand free. "I didn't want to be the one who got left. Again." She blinked at sudden tears and shook her head, angry at herself. She was never this emotional before…though she wasn't sure before what. Before Adria? Before Qetesh? Before Daniel in Egypt? Before she fell in love?

"I knew you were lying." Sam said softly. "You were scared. I was terrified. But I've never been sorry about anything between us. Those six months changed me."

Vala sniffed, not sure she believed her. "Yeah?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah." She eased off the bed. "I should let you get some rest. I need to get back to work. I'll come by later."

"I'll be here." Vala called after her, watching the door close. There was a warm feeling in her stomach, like coming home. She hadn't felt that in a very long time.

 

Vala felt a little odd in her borrowed dress, but as Sam smiled and they were shown to a table, she told herself to relax. It was a simple evening out. Everything had been so busy and their fight against the Ori so dismal, that taking any time away from it had seemed ridiculous. Until Sam had come to her door and offered to take her out, so that they could talk.

"Thank you." Sam nodded to the host as he held her chair, then did the same for Vala.

They were offered menus, and Vala took hers while looking around the room. "Fancy."

Sam smiled. "I wanted someplace nice."

"You remember that place we went to after you left your prom date?" Vala asked. "It wanted to be this place when it grew up."

Sam laughed and put her napkin in her lap. "With their paper placemats?"

"And the fake flowers on the tables." Vala said laughing. "I like this place better. And I don't mind telling you, I've been looking forward to this little date all week."

Sam sort of fidgeted in her chair. "I don't know that I'd call it a date, exactly."

Vala looked at Sam who was suddenly very interested in her menu. "Not a date? What is it then?"

"Do we have to name it? Can’t it just be two friends having dinner?"

"In a nice romantic restaurant?" Vala's heart was pounding a little harder than it had been. She hadn't been lying about looking forward to this night. A chance to finally go past the small talk and idle flirting.

Sam put down her menu with a sigh. "Look, Vala--"

"Good evening, can I get you ladies started with a drink this evening?"

"Oh, I think you can." Vala responded, grabbing the drink menu. 

"Tonight's featured martinis are the chocolate, passion fruit, and shochu plum."

Vala avoided looking at Sam, just smiled up at the waiter. "They all sound wonderful. So… one of each, then?"

Sam took the drink menu from her hands. "Yeah, no. She'll have the chocolate. I'll just have water."

"Great, I'll get that started while you look at your menus."

He walked away and Vala lifted her menu to look at it. "Vala…"

"You always were a little bossy." Vala said, peering around the menu at her. She kicked herself mentally. She wasn't trying to put Sam on the defensive.

"Bossy? Me?" Sam put her menu down to look at her. "You know, Daniel may be more right about you than I've been willing to admit."

Vala put her menu down too, irritated at more than herself now. "Daniel? What does he have to do with …with this." She moved her hand back and forth between them.

Sam nodded. "Okay, let's start there. I know there's history there."

Vala's mouth fell open and she partially turned away, trying to follow how the conversation had gone so spectacularly wrong so quickly. "Daniel. Right." She licked her lips and wished for her drink for a distraction. "Is this…jealousy?" Vala asked, incredulously.

Sam sat back, looking startled. "What? No. What would make you think…" She sighed and pressed her lips together. "Look, you've known Daniel a lot longer than me. You have…connections I can't lay claim to. I don't…" She stopped as the waiter returned with their drinks.

"Are you ready to order, or do you need a minute?"

"Give us a minute." Sam said, smiling at him.

He walked away and Vala lifted her drink, taking a sip. Sam hadn't picked badly, it was quite tasty.

Sam cleared her throat. "What I mean is, I can't help but notice that it was Daniel you came back to Earth for, it's been Daniel you've been flirting with. If Daniel is who you want, I don't want to…I don't want to come in here with some school girl expectations that something that lasted six months, twenty years ago can just go back to being real."

Vala was quiet for a second, then looked up at Sam. "Nineteen," she corrected. She reached across the table to take Sam's hand, making sure that she caught her eye at the same time. "Nineteen years, three months, tomorrow."

Sam blushed, her eyes dropping to their joined hands as Vala rubbed a thumb over the back of her knuckles. "What? You remembered that?"

"There are a lot of things in my life that I would prefer to forget, Samantha, but you are not one of them…and neither is that day. I have regretted that day every single day since."

"Oh." Sam said, glancing down. "Me too. I mean…I think about it a lot."

"I was with you for six months. I've never been with anyone longer. Even Daniel. Yes, I've known him since we were kids. We lived in the same foster home for a little more than a year, then I found him one time I ran away and he hid me in the school basement for a week or so. And, in full disclosure, I ran into him in Egypt before he got his first PhD, and we spent a week together. And yes, we had sex and it was good…and if things had been different, I might have gone back and been with him, but I ended up a long way from him or you with no way back…until I found him by accident again."

"Um. Excuse me?" They both looked up and Vala dropped Sam's hand.

"Right. Our order. I'll have the penne with chicken." Vala said, smiling and handing the waiter her menu.

Sam was positively radiant with blush as she followed suit with her menu. "I'll have the same."

The waiter was also a rather adorable shade of red as he walked away and Sam laughed. "So, where does that leave us?"

Vala bit her lip for a second. She hadn't fully articulated her feelings in a long time. "How about, at the beginning? Like the first time?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "What, like dating?"

Vala nodded. "There are a lot of years since that last kiss, a lot of new things to learn about each other."

Sam smiled. "I think I'd like that."

Vala couldn't help but smile too. "But first, I need to use the ladies room." She stood as Sam gestured back toward the front door. Vala took two steps away, but then swiveled back, taking Sam's face in her hands and pressing their lips together. "I thought we should get the first one out of the way." Vala said softly, grinning widely before she headed for the bathroom. 

She was so caught up in the taste of Sam's lips she never noticed the man, or the needle until it was too late and she couldn't even cry out for help.

 

Memories crashed through her, memories of things she would rather forget, things she witnessed Qetesh do while trapped inside her own body. Her muscles were tense, even as she slowly became aware of more than the memories. Someone nearby was talking, but she couldn't pull back enough from the fear and fury held in the memories to make sense of it. 

"Dial it down." 

The memories faded back and she could feel the table under her, the restraints that kept her bound to the table, the Tok'ra memory device stuck into her temple. There were two men in the room. One of them stepped a little closer. "How're you feeling?"

Vala panted and turned to look at him. "A little dizzy. A little tired. And very, very angry." The rage wasn’t hers, not really.

"Oh, that's because the flashbacks you're experiencing are dredging up some long-buried emotions that may be coloring your conscious mind." 

Vala squinted at him, imagining squeezing his tiny head between her hands and twisting his neck until it popped. "I'm gonna kill both of you in the most painful way possible."

He didn't even have the decency to look concerned. "Things'll go a lot faster if you just relax." He glanced over his shoulder and nodded to the other man in the room. "Whenever you're ready."

Vala groaned as the memories surged again; Jaffa killing other Jaffa, and humans as well, battles that covered landscapes. Her body arched up in pain as they continued digging. She couldn't have guessed how long it lasted before it was once more pulled back and she could sense her surroundings again. 

The man torturing her smiled down on her as her breathing started to even out. "You know what I think the problem is?"

Vala licked her lips and looked at the ceiling. "That I can't strangle you?"

He laughed and leaned over her, forcing her to look at him. "You're fighting the process. In the end, all you're really doing is delaying the inevitable. Why don't we try and keep an open mind? Hmm?"

"Why don't you fuck off and--" The end of her thought vanished as the memory device came back on and she fought yelling as it ripped deeper into her memory for the information they wanted.

 

"What was that? Turn it down."

Vala was only partially aware of her surroundings as the men scrambled and gunshots rang out. Her torturer started to remove her restraints, then dove at the equipment. The zing of a zat blast sang through the room and there was a surge through her head, leaving a trail of white noise and empty spaces. She frantically tried to finish freeing herself, even as a man in uniform came into the room, telling her he was there to help.

She didn't even have time to decide whether or not to trust him before he was collapsing to the ground, shot through the chest.

She jumped from the table and took off running, pulling at the device in her temple. She didn't look back, her heart pounding and her mind swiftly letting go of every memory.

 

"Vala? Vala, it's me, Daniel. We know you're in here. There's nowhere else you could've gone."

She hid in the shadows behind industrial crates and shelving, scared and despite how familiar the voice sounded, unsure. 

"Vala?" That voice was more familiar and Vala eased the gun out of the back of her pants before moving slowly toward the voices. Flashes of memory flickered, voices, gunfire.

"Vala? I know you're scared. But we're not here to hurt you. We can help you remember."

There was an eruption of gunfire and yelling and Vala stood, holding the gun in front of her and moving toward the nearest exit. A woman stood in her way, a strange gun in her hand. "Get out of my way."

She shook her head. "Vala, it's me, Sam."

A man stepped in beside her, his gun hanging loose in his hand.

"Get out of my way or I will shoot you."

The man put his gun on the floor and the woman followed suit. "You don't remember who you are, but we do," he said.

"But we do." She added.

There was yelling and more gunfire, sounds of zinging electricity that drew her attention.

"Vala, if we let you go, you're gonna make yourself disappear. You've been running so long it's almost second nature to you."

Vala looked from him to the woman, memories welling up inside her and for the first time since that day in Sol's, the memories weren't terrifying. They were warm, filled with smiling faces and laughter, with friendship.

"You don't remember it, but you made a decision to stop running. It's over. Now it's time to come home."

Vala lifted the fingers of her free hand to touch her lips as a memory flooded her with warmth, a kiss…soft lips on hers. Tears filled her eyes and she blinked to clear them, looking up at the two of them. "Sam? Daniel?" Her voice trembled, but she lowered the gun and let them pull her into a hug as everything in her head shifted into place and she was herself again.

She was quiet as they took her back to the base, the memories dancing around in her head, reminding her of all that she had thought she had put behind her when she'd woken up without Qetesh in her head. Beside her, Sam slid a hand over hers and offered her a warm smile. "You okay?" she asked softly.

Vala saw Daniel turn to look at them briefly, then look away. She nodded. "I think so."

"We'll have Dr. Lam check you out once we get you home." 

Vala nodded again, then let her head fall back to rest against the back of the seat. She was suddenly so tired. Her eyes slid closed and she let herself drift, listening to the sounds of the road under them as the memories played out. 

Home. 

She'd felt that once or twice in her life. She pulled Sam's hand closer. If she let herself believe, let herself trust…maybe she could feel it again.

 

"Vala?"

She looked up from Sam's stomach that she was busy exploring with her lips, smiling as she moved to capture Sam's lips with her own. "Hmmm?"

Sam's hand slid up her side, over her shoulder and into her hair, pulling her back for another kiss, their tongues rubbing together lightly. "We should probably think about what we're going to tell the guys we did this weekend."

Vala smiled and kissed over Sam's jaw, licking and kissing down her neck, along her collarbone and down to her breast. Sam breathed out as Vala licked at her hard nipple, then suck it in between her lips. Sam's hand tugged a little on her hair and Vala looked up again. "I'm serious."

Vala sat up, her hand caressing over warm skin. "We tell them we went shopping." She waved her hand at the bags that lined the room from the long day they'd spent out. "It won't be a lie."

Sam bit her lip and sat up a little bit. "But that was only a few hours."

Vala chuckled. "They're boys. They won't know that. You worry too much."

Sam took her hand and caressed over it. "I've told you that we have to keep this a secret."

Vala nodded, her eyes slipping closed as Sam began kissing the tips of her fingers. "I know. Secret."

Sam opened her mouth, taking Vala's index finger in and sucking on it. "There are rules." Sam murmured. 

Vala breathed out slowly. Sam's mouth moved to the next finger, licking, sucking and Vala reached for her, wanting to take this past teasing, but Sam moved out of her reach, keeping her hand and making Vala open her eyes. "Right, rules." Vala agreed, nodding.

Sam smiled at her and moved to kiss her palm, up her arm, moving and pressing Vala back to the bed before straddling over her, pressing their groins together before leaning in to kiss her. Sam moved her hips, grinding down against Vala.

Vala's hands moved up Sam's thighs to her waist, holding her in place as she shifted position, spreading her legs and bringing them closer together. Electric desire built as they rocked together, their wetness combining to fill the air with the smell of sex. 

On the nightstand, Sam's phone started to buzz and Vala shook her head. "Don't answer it."

"I have to, it could be important." Sam stretched for the phone and Vala sat up, her hands sliding up Sam's sides as she answered. "Carter. Oh, Daniel…What? No, that's okay, we were, uh…" She pushed Vala away when she thumbed over Sam's nipples. "We were just about to have some lunch. Yeah, we can be there in an hour."

Vala collapsed dramatically back to the bed as Sam hung up and set the phone aside. "Don't tell me, we're needed to save the galaxy again." 

Sam shrugged and rolled to the side of the bed. "Not exactly. The Asgard want us."

Vala followed when Sam stood, heading for the bathroom. "The Asgard? Why?"

"They weren't specific, but we're going to hitch a ride on Odyssey."

Vala watched Sam start the shower, considering what she knew of the Asgard, which wasn't much. "Maybe they've found a way to beat the Ori." Vala offered as Sam stepped into the shower. 

"Wouldn't that be nice." Sam responded. "Are you getting in?" She peeked around the curtain at her and smiled.

"Well, since you asked so nicely." Vala said, grinning. 

 

Vala did her level best to keep to Sam's rules, flirting with Daniel as always, or was more likely true, driving him crazy as always. His patience surprised her, even when he was completely uninterested in whatever she was trying to rope him into…it reminded her of the time they'd spent together as children in a lot of ways.

She largely avoided Sam on the ship, though they sat in briefings together and ate meals together, usually with Daniel or Cameron or Teal'c joining them. The night before they got to Orilla, Sam slipped into Vala's room, long after most of the others were sleeping, sliding into bed beside Vala, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

But then, they got to the Asgard homeworld, and everything changed.

"So thanks to Asgard technology, we are in a time dilation bubble. While time may appear to be passing at a normal rate for us, in fact years will pass inside the bubble while mere fractions of a second pass outside the field." Sam said, her expression tight.

They were stuck, in other words. She had stayed aboard when the crew had gone down to the planet to be with Sam, but Vala was starting to second guess her choice.

"You won't need that much time, though." Landry said, as though he could will it to happen.

Sam bit her lip and shrugged a little. "Hopefully not. My plan is to try and make the necessary modifications to the Odyssey so we can take it out of phase. Then, when we shut down the time dilation field, the blast won't hit us."

"That would be good." Daniel said dryly.

"You're probably wondering why I just didn't do that in the first place."

Cameron shook his head. "I'm still back on the 'time thing'."

Sam smiled tightly. "The Asgard core has time dilation field technology built right into it. It was a quick and easy option. I'm actually gonna have to recreate some of Merlin's out-of-phase technology from scratch with what we have on-board. And it could take a while."

Daniel shifted uncomfortably. "Just to be sure, how long is a-a while in our time?"

"I'm not exactly sure. But we have enough food and water for three months."

Vala wasn't alone in staring at her, open mouthed. "Three months?"

General Landry recovered first. "We can ration supplies."

Sam was looking very uncomfortable, but Vala was pretty sure that three months aboard this ship with Sam's attention completely on solving their current predicament was going to push her over the edge. She leaned in to Daniel and whispered in his ear. "I'm gonna go crazy, and I'm taking you with me."

When the briefing was over, Vala waited for the others to leave. Sam sighed and sat at the end of the table. "Is there anything I can do to help?" Vala asked softly.

Sam pulled her hands through her hair and slowly shook her head. "No. Just…" She looked up, fear in her eyes and for the first time Vala actually considered that they might not make it out this time. 

"I'll leave you to it then." Vala said, standing.

"Vala." Sam called after her and she turned. "Thank you."

Vala offered her a smile and a nod. "You know where to find me."

As the days passed, Vala tried to keep her spirits up, at least when she was near Sam, but Sam was harder and harder to be around as she ran simulations and her frustration grew. Vala found herself staying away, aside from occasionally making sure Sam ate something. Then the weeks grew into months.

Everyone seemed to find a way to occupy themselves. Mitchel ran and sparred with Teal'c. Daniel immersed himself in the Asgard knowledge. Even Landry found ways to occupy his time. Vala sat in her quarters and stared at the walls or wandered the ship restlessly, usually ending up following Daniel around, but he seemed to barely know she was there. She felt more alone than she had since returning to Earth.

She craved Sam's smile, her touch…but she knew she'd never compete with the ship and the puzzle. 

"Daniel?" Vala frowned as he passed her in the corridor, obviously upset by something. He didn't really answer, but didn't stop her from following him as he went into his cabin. "What's wrong?"

He shook his head and sighed. "I was just reading…"

Vala nodded in understanding. He'd spent a lot of time with the Asgard database. "There isn't anything we could have done."

"I mean, all they wanted to do was live a little longer. We're no different. Sequence DNA. Cure diseases. One fatal mistake, and they doom their entire race." He looked at her, his eyes thoughtful and a little sad. "I guess no matter what you do, at the end of the day…life is too short."

"I agree." Vala said softly.

Daniel turned away from her, resting one arm on the top of his bookshelf. He took his glasses off and rubbed his eye. 

He seemed so melancholy, and she felt starved for touch. She stood, pulling her sweater up over her head and dropping it as Daniel turned back, putting his glasses on and frowning at her.

"What are you doing?" Daniel asked, though he didn't move away as she came closer.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out." Vala said, reaching for his belt buckle and undoing it. 

"Don't do that." Daniel said, though he hadn't moved.

Her laugh was dry and without humor. "Why not?" She moved her hands to unbutton his pants, but he grabbed her hands and the cautious expression changed to one of anger. He pushed her away and turned his back to her, re-buckling his belt. "We've been here three months, Daniel. Three months! I know it's been a while, but…you liked me once, remember?"

Daniel was quiet for a minute before he turned to look at her again. "I remember, Vala. But, you're supposed to be with Sam." His voice was low and even and serious.

Vala swallowed around a sudden fear. "Sam? What…what do you mean?"

Daniel smiled a little, his hands in her pockets. "She's my best friend, do you think I wouldn't notice?"

Vala sat heavily on the bed. "She didn't want anyone to know."

"For what it's worth, I don't think anyone else does." 

"Not surprising, given she's barely looked at me since we got on board." Vala said miserably.

"Is that why you're here?" Daniel asked, crossing his arms. "You're bored?"

"What?" Vala shook her head. "No. And…yes." He wasn't entirely wrong. But she couldn't seem to make the words come out of her mouth. "I…miss you."

"You miss me?" Daniel asked, shaking his head. 

Vala turned her head away. "I miss the way you used to be with me." Which was true, but not really what she meant to say. "Am I really that repulsive to you?"

"Do you want an honest answer to that question?"

She really didn't. She was too afraid of his answer. "No."

Daniel was coming toward her and she stood again, trying to find a way to go back to the spot where they could at least pretend to be friends.

"No seriously, you started this! Do you want an honest answer to the question?" Daniel asked, his voice louder and angrier than it had been. Vala turned away and picked up her sweater. 

"No, don't worry about it." She started for the door, but his voice froze her in place.

"Do you believe I could have any kind of serious feelings for you?"

She turned to look at him, hoping her pain didn't show on her face. "I wasn't suggesting you have serious feelings, Daniel." Vala said, licking her lips.  
"So, what? You just want to sleep together because you're bored? Is that what I am to you?" He moved away, laughing to himself. "That's all I've ever been to you. A toy you play with when it suits you." 

"Daniel, I--"

"I mean…come on! I mean, I can't even imagine what a—what a relationship with you would be like!  
Sam must be crazy."

Tears swelled up unbidden in her eyes as her stomach tightened around his words. She sat slowly on the bed, hiding her face from him. He wasn't wrong. For all of her trying she was still a fuck up, she was still the same woman who had walked away from him, who had stolen and lied. 

"I mean, yes, yes, you've proven yourself to be…trustworthy on a professional level, and for that I am very proud of you, but on a personal level?" He was closer now. She could feel him hovering nearby. She sat very still, tears slipping from her eyes.

"There was a time…I mean, when you left…" He moved away again. "And then there was Sha're. And I thought I'd never get past losing her. But I've finally gotten to the place…I've finally, for the first time in a long time, have gotten to the place where I actually feel I could get close to somebody again. But not in a million years, a million, million years, would I ever possibly consider that person being you! Not again."

He moved back to the bookshelf. "And I sure as hell don't want to be part of you doing that to Sam."

She nodded slightly and wiped her face. 

"Don't act like you're hurt."

She tried to laugh it off. She tried to just brush it away and leave. She pulled her sweater back on, but suddenly Daniel was sitting there beside her.

His hand was warm on her back and she covered her face with her hands. "Hey."

"Just give me a minute." Vala whispered, trying to regain her composure. "I'll go."

"Look at me." Daniel said softly. She didn't move until she could feel his hand on her hair.

Vala lowered one hand and looked at him, his face had softened and he looked suddenly like he believed her feelings for him were more than being bored. She licked her lips and turned away. "I'm sorry."

His hand turned her face back toward him gently and his thumb rubbed over her cheek. His kiss was soft, barely there. Vala's breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened. His eyes found hers and there was more emotion in them than she expected. "Daniel?"

He nodded softly and kissed her again, deeper this time, his tongue parting her lips as his hand slid over the skin of her neck, drawing her closer. Vala closed her eyes and surrendered to his touch, forgetting everything else for the steadily growing heat between them. 

 

"Hey."

Vala looked up from the book she was reading, something she'd borrowed from Daniel's collection as Sam hovered in the doorway of Vala's quarters. "Can I come in?"

Vala smiled and nodded, patting the bed beside her. The time and stress had started to show in Sam's face, the lines deeper than the last time Vala had gotten a good look at her. "How long since you slept?" Vala asked softly.

Sam sank onto the bed, her eyes closing. "A while. In fact, it's been a while since I've even left Engineering."

"We've noticed." Vala said. "We've been taking turns making sure you eat something and sleep from time to time."

"I know. Thank you." Sam bit her lip, something that always made Vala want to lick away the tiny impression left behind. "And, I'm sorry."

Vala frowned and reached for her hand, rubbing her thumb lightly over the dry skin that seemed somehow frailer than she remembered. "You're sorry for what?"

"How I've ignored you. You must hate me."

Vala inhaled and let it out slowly. "I could never hate you, Samantha. I love you."

Sam blinked and looked up at her. Neither one of them had ever said the words before, preferring to just let whatever was going to happen, happen without trying to name it or quantify it. "You do?"

Vala licked her lips and nodded. "I do. And I'm sorry too."

Sam looked confused, scooting a little closer on the bed. "You're sorry for what?"

Vala pressed her lips together for a long moment. "Because I'm never going to be the woman you deserve in your life. Because I can't help you. Because I also love Daniel?" She cringed a little bit, half expecting…well, some sort of emotional reaction.

Instead, Sam sort of chuckled, ducking her head a little. "Actually…I already knew that last one." She pulled Vala's hand up to her mouth and kissed it lightly. "I realized a while back, and don't get me wrong, I got a little upset…but I've had time to think about it, and I haven't been here for you. He has, and god knows he needs someone to love him. I'm not…I'm not jealous, Vala."

"You're not?" 

Sam shook her head and lowered their hands. "I'm sorry. And I'm tired. And I wish to hell I could find a solution to this so that we could all go home."

There were tears shimmering in her eyes and Vala opened her arms. Sam came to her, collapsing down beside her and curling into a ball. Vala slid down to lay beside her, petting over her hair and letting her cry. Daniel had done much the same for her not too long before.

 

"I did it." Sam said softly. 

Slowly, one by one they looked up from their meals, waiting for her to say more.

"You did what?" Mitchell finally asked when the silence had grown long. 

Sam sighed and put down her fork, but didn't look up at any of them. They all did a lot of that lately, not looking. It only reminded them how long it had been, how old they had become. "I figured out how to reverse time in a localized field." Her voice was flat, as if she hadn't just announced that she'd figured out how to save them.

For a long minute none of them said anything.

"What?" Daniel asked, glancing quickly at Vala as if to confirm he'd heard her right.

"What's the matter?" Vala asked, knowing that there had to be more.

"Maintaining the time dilation field for all this time has almost completely depleted the ZPM, and the power source in the Asgard core." Sam answered.

Mitchell nodded in understanding. "We don't have enough power to make it work."

"Mmmm. There's irony for you, huh?" Sam said, trying to smile and failing.

Cameron stood, waving his hand like the whole thing disgusted him and went to stand at the window.

"I create the field to buy us more time. I finally figure out how to undo it all, and that extra time is what makes it impossible." Sam rubbed her face and sat back in her chair.

Daniel leaned toward her. "Are you sure? I mean, if you had some more time, could you—"

Sam shook her head sadly. "I'm sure."

"Hey, Sam." Cameron said from by the window. "Do you remember when we were stuck out of phase?"

Sam frowned. "Which time?"

"When you got shot and you thought you were gonna die, and the Ori were gonna destroy that village."

Sam sort of nodded. "Vaguely."

"You had me use the power source from an Ori staff weapon to power Merlin's device."

"We don't have anything even close to a power source that would be required to keep a reverse time-field working for long enough."

He turned to look at her. "Really." He came from the window and put out his hand. Sam looked up at him, hesitantly taking his hand as he said, "Come with me."

Cameron lead her to the window and pointed. "What about that?"

Sam shook her head. "That? There's no way we…." She licked her lips and tilted her head and Vala could just about see the wheels turning in her head, even from across the room.

It didn't take her long to figure out after that. Less than 24 hours later, they gathered in the engineering room and she looked pleased with herself, but still concerned. "There's no way to absorb the blast and channel the energy into the Asgard core." Sam said once they were all there. 

"Unless…" Cameron rolled his hands and gestured to her.

"Unless we reroute the power conduits throughout the ship into the core, and let the blast hit us."

Vala frowned at her. "This ship will explode."  
Sam nodded. "Yes. But hopefully, enough energy from the blast will be channeled into the core to allow it to activate the reverse time-field before everything is totally destroyed."

"But we'll all be dead."

"If this works, we'll only be dead for a few milliseconds… And time within the bubble will reverse, and we won't be dead, and the ship won't be destroyed."

"If this works." Cameron said, looking less than fully comfortable with her wording.

"Yes. I'm not promising anything." Sam said.

"It's all right, it's a shot… And I say we take it." Cameron said, nodding to himself.

Vala moved a little closer to Sam. "How far back can we go?"

"Only to the point where the time dilation field was created. We can't reverse time for the entire universe. If we go back any further than that, we are outside of normal time-space again and we create a paradox that the technology couldn't handle."

"Is that going to be good enough?" Daniel asked.

"I might be able to buy us a little more time, maybe a minute. But…one of us is gonna have to stay old." Sam replied.

"Oh." Daniel looked from Sam to Cameron and back to Sam.

Cameron echoed him. All eyes came back to Sam.

"We're talking about reversing time within the field. Everything: our age, our memories, will be undone." Sam said.

Daniel shifted, his arms crossed. "So, if this works, we'll be doomed to repeat history."

She nodded. "Unless we can exclude someone from the field who can steer events in another direction."

"You created the time dilation field to prevent us from being hit by that blast in the first place. You had no choice." Cameron said.

"Right! We have to sever the Asgard core from the hyperdrive controls, or else the Ori will be able to follow us when we make the jump into hyperspace. A long time ago, in the event that I ever did solve the time issue, I created a program that would achieve that very quickly. I'll load it onto a crystal. That way, it will only take me a few seconds to shut down the core and make the jump into hyperspace."

Cameron stood up from where he'd been leaning on the wall. "Who says it's gonna be you?"

"Well, it makes sense that it be me."

Vala and Cameron both shook their heads in disagreement before Teal'c spoke up. "I will do it."

Everyone turned to look at Teal'c. Daniel was the first to speak. "Teal'c, you've lost as many years as the rest of us."

"What are you, a hundred and thirty now?" Cameron asked.

"I don't know, he doesn't look a day over one twenty to me." Vala offered, smiling a little in gratitude for Teal'c's offer.

"I have many more years to live. I am the only logical choice."

"Teal'c." Sam looked like she wanted to argue, but couldn't.

"I have but one question. If this should not work…" 

"Then the shields will fail, and you will die along with the rest of us."

Teal'c nodded. "Then it is settled."

 

"You're all clean." Dr. Lam announced from inside her hazmat suit.

Vala's heart unclenched a little, but Sam knew there was more. "What's the bad news?"

Dr. Lam shook her head. "There doesn't seem to be any reason that the four of you aren't sick."

"Which means no antibodies." Sam deduced.

"No antibodies means no vaccine, no treatment?" Daniel asked, sinking back onto the cot in the makeshift hospital.

Dr. Lam nodded. "We're doing our best to treat the symptoms, but it is a very aggressive virus, and it replicates and mutates faster than we can keep up."

"How is Colonel Mitchell?" Vala asked when the silence had gone on too long.

"It doesn't look good."

"Well, can we see him?" Sam asked.

Dr. Lam shook her head. "Give us a little more time to get everyone into containment and get the area around it sterilized. I don't want any more cases on my hands."

"Does he have that kind of time?" Daniel asked. 

Sam turned away from him, from Lam, her face pressed against Vala's shoulder. Vala slipped an arm around her, forgetting where they were or who might see. Dr. Lam nodded slowly. "Let me see what I can do."

She walked away and Daniel moved in so that he too could put an arm around Sam. The three of them stood silently for a long time, just holding onto one another.

It was Teal'c's voice that finally broke them apart, his deep baritone reaching them from near the entrance to the tent that was serving as the hospital and lab for what Sam had said was worse than the Prior plague. "Dr. Lam has arranged for us to speak to Colonel Mitchell."

They moved together. Vala kept her arm around Sam as they went, fingers reaching for Daniel's hand. Teal'c led them out of the tent and across the compound that had sprung up near the gate. They moved away from the gate, back toward the village, stopping at the tent that blocked the road.

The canvas was thick and heavy and so was the plastic giving them a window into the ward where they were keeping Cameron Mitchell and a number of others until the more permanent containment facility was ready. Dr. Lam, still in her hazmat gear, wheeled Cameron up to the window in a wheelchair. She held up a hand to indicate that they had five minutes.

Cameron looked like a ghost, his skin ash white and his eyes sunken with deep, dark circles. He tried to smile and failed. "Hey." His voice was stripped from coughing and it was clearly hard to keep his head up.

"Cam--" Sam's voice broke before she could finish and she dropped her eyes.

"No. Sam. Don't." Cameron gasped, shaking his head weakly. 

"You need to keep fighting." Daniel said, but his voice didn't carry much conviction. "We won't give up."

Cameron licked his lips and leaned toward the window. "I think we all know where this is going."

Sam's hand fisted around Vala's clothes at the small of her back. "No. Dr. Lam will find something."

Cameron sort of nodded. "Maybe, but I don't got much time now." He started coughing, one hand grabbing at the wheelchair arm, the other grabbing at his chest. Dr. Lam appeared over his shoulder, the concern clear on her face, even through the hazmat suit and the window. Cameron held up the hand that had been against his chest and she stepped back. "Jackson, there's a letter in my locker for my parents."

Daniel nodded, tears welling in his eyes. "I'll take care of it."

Cameron swallowed hard and drew in a shaky breath. "I have had the best time with you guys."

Vala could feel Sam shudder and pulled her a little closer. Tears rolled unchecked down Sam's face. "Cameron, you…" She shook her head. "Thank you…for…"

"Getting the band back together." Daniel finished for her, his arm sliding around Sam, caressing against Vala's.

"Oh, and there's a bottle of 58 year old Scotch at my apartment that I've been meaning to break open, I want you guys to enjoy it." Cameron said. He was holding both arms of the wheelchair and his face was covered in a fine sweat. "Just…raise a …glass…" He started coughing again, and this time it didn't seem to end.

Dr. Lam stepped in and pulled him away. Vala could make out the motion as she pulled him back toward the beds, and there was a flurry of activity before everything went still. Sam let out a strangled cry, turning to bury her face in the crook of Vala's neck, sobbing against her even before Dr. Lam came back to the window to say the words.

For a long time they stood there, Daniel and Teal'c standing guard beside them as Vala tried to sooth the grief that hadn't quite hit her yet.

It would though. Later, when they'd gone home, when they'd regrouped in the conference room…and that chair was empty…when it came time to write down what had happened and there were no words for the strange echo she felt in her heart.

 

   
Vala finished brushing out her hair, which was showing a lot more gray than it used to, and turned to where Sam was propped up against the headboard with pillows, glasses perched at the end of her nose as she read one of her science magazines.

Her hair was more silver than gold these days too, and there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and across her brow that become more pronounced as she squinted at the page.

Vala got up and crossed to the bed, sliding across her side to lay her head in Sam's lap and pluck the magazine from her hands. "I don't know why you bother reading this. It makes you cranky." Vala tossed the magazine and grinned up at her. "Especially when I'm much more interesting."

"Vala, I was reading that." Sam exclaimed, but Vala could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't angry.

"No you weren't, you were growling at it." Vala countered. "And I came all the way across town to be with you tonight."

"Yes, you did." Sam conceded, leaning down to kiss her. "I'm sorry."

Vala pouted for a moment, then kissed Sam back. "Better."

"How are things at the SGC?" Sam asked.

Vala sighed a little. "Fine. It's still weird without you though."

Sam smiled, petting through Vala's hair with one hand. "Is Daniel back from…" She frowned.

"Avilona." Vala supplied. "No, they're due back tomorrow."

"What about you?" 

"Me?" Vala asked, looking up at her.

"The cracked ribs, the mild concussion? Ring a bell?"

"Oh, I'm fine. Back on the active roster and ready to go."

Sam nodded and seemed distracted. "You miss it." Vala said softly. It had been well over a year since Sam had chosen retirement and at first she had loved it. Cassandra's two children had been rambunctious scamps and with her third pregnancy showing early signs of trouble, she'd needed help. But now that Cassandra had delivered her son and her husband was back from his overseas assignment, Sam wasn't as busy as before.

"Yes…and no." Sam said. She leaned her head back, her fingers trailing lightly from Vala's hair to her shoulder. "I mean, I have plenty to do." She bit her lip. "And I've gotten more than a few job offers."

Vala shifted so she could look at her. "Is that what you want?"

Sam sighed. "I don't know. Sometimes."

"And other times?"

Sam shook her head slightly. "I don't know." 

They sat silently for a while before Vala slowly sat up and took her hand. "I know what you need. Teal'c will be home from the new Jaffa planet tomorrow, and Daniel should be back with SG-3 tomorrow. Why don't we get together for dinner, the four of us?" 

Sam smiled and nodded. "I'd like that."

Vala kissed her lightly. "Good, it's settled then. In the meantime, how about you and I see if we can disturb the neighbors." 

 

"Who are you calling?" Vala asked as she came back from the ladies room to find Sam dialing a number on her cell phone.

"Daniel. I found the answer to his question." Sam said, frowning. "Voicemail again."

"He's probably buried in that Ancient database again." Vala said. "Ever since they installed that interface, he's like a junky."

Sam sighed and lifted her coffee cup, draining the last of it. "You ready?" 

Vala nodded and stood, dusting her hands together. Sam dropped some money to cover the check and they headed for the door, Sam's hand in hers. There was yelling of some kind outside, but before it even registered, Sam's hand left hers and she was falling away. Vala grabbed for her, but it was too late, Sam's body crashed into the ground, her head bouncing off the sidewalk with a wet crack.

"NO!" Vala screamed as she dropped to her knees, reaching for Sam, but afraid to touch her too. "Sam? Samantha, open your eyes."

Slowly, Sam's eyes opened, dazed and unfocused. "Vala…" 

Blood was spilling from under her head and from her nose and ears. Vala's hand moved to wipe it away, but it kept coming. "No, you listen to me, Samantha. Stay with me." She looked up at the people gawking. "Don't just stand there, call an ambulance!"

Sam's hand moved against hers and Vala took it, wiping at tears. "It's okay. It's okay. Help is coming."

She blinked slowly, her eyes finding Vala and Vala's heart stopped. "I love you." Sam said softly. "Don't…don't…forget."

"Samantha, please. Please don't do this." Vala kissed the back of her hand, clinging to her tightly as if she could hold her there, keep her from dying.

Sam's eyes rolled. In the distance she could hear the ambulance coming. "Sam, come on."

"Tell….tell…Daniel…."

Her hand fell limp in Vala's and Vala trembled as she held it tighter. "Samantha. Look at me."

Her eyes moved slightly, but then froze. All around her people were talking, but she could only hear a droning sound, a deep buzzing that surrounded her and then she was being moved, hands pulling her away and she fought to get back, but they pushed her into a chair and grabbed her face. "Do you hear me?"

Vala blinked , panting as she tried to focus on the face of the woman leaning over her and keeping her in the chair. She nodded to indicate she was listening. "We can't help her if you're in the way." 

"You're too late." Vala said, choking back a sob.

The next few moments were a blur of people talking, police and EMTs and questions she couldn't answer while she sat numbly, staring at Sam's unmoving body on the sidewalk. They hadn't even covered her and Vala could almost believe she would be okay, she would get up and laugh it off. Almost.

But dead eyes stared at her and a chill settled into her as she stared and waited for someone to wake her up from her nightmare. Someone put a bottle of water on the table beside her, pulling Vala's attention away from Samantha. She blinked and looked up. "Is there someone I can call for you?" the female EMT asked.

"D-Daniel." Vala said, her voice cracking. She fumbled her phone out of her pocket and the woman took it, checking her contacts and nodding.

She walked away and Vala was vaguely aware of her talking on the phone. She reached for the water, but was struck by the blood streaking her hands. She started shaking harder. It was on her hands, and the knee of her jeans was wet with it. She stared for a long time, her mind stuck on the sight, on the knowledge that only minutes ago that blood had been inside Sam's body. Or maybe it was longer now. She wasn't sure.

Movement around her caught her attention, a man was covering Sam with a yellow tarp. People were being dispersed. Two men loaded into police cars. Vala blinked. It wasn't real. None of it was. She was sure of it. It couldn't be real.

"Vala?" 

She looked up slowly. Daniel. He looked confused, dazed. She shook her head. "No." She stood, trying to turn away, but Daniel caught her wrists.

"Are you okay?" 

Vala blinked as tears fell. What kind of question was that? She shrank away from him, wanting to go to Sam. But Sam was dead. 

He let go of her, but followed her. The body was gone, nothing left but a puddle of blood on the sidewalk. Daniel was behind her as her knees buckled and she fell. He came with her, his arms around her, holding her as everything inside her cracked open and bled out around her. He cradled her to him, letting her scream and cry until she had collapsed exhaustedly against him, too wrung out to do more.

She was vaguely aware of Teal'c taking her from Daniel, carrying her into an alley where they could be beamed up to an orbiting ship and back down to the infirmary at the SGC. There was some comfort in the familiar, in the way Daniel brushed her hair from her face, in the light kiss he put on her forehead as a nurse injected her with something that would make her sleep. "Daniel…" 

He nodded, tears on his face. "I know."

The dark inside was welcoming, quiet and she surrendered herself into it willingly.

 

"Vala?" 

She didn't move or respond, keeping herself curled up tight on the bed. Daniel let himself in anyway, crossing the room to sit beside her, one hand caressing over her back. "Vala, I need you to sit up."

She sniffled at the tears and burrowed her face into her pillow. "I know you're hurting. But Sam wouldn't want this."

This. As if there was anything at all but this. She couldn't think, she couldn't move. She'd gone through the motions, as long as there was someone there to guide her…Daniel, Teal'c. There had been a funeral, condolences. When it was done, they'd brought her back here. To the room she'd left years before and she just stopped. 

It had been days. She lay there, unmoving, crying herself to sleep only to awaken into the same dark nightmare. 

Daniel's hand was warm on her back. "I brought you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry." Her voice was strained from disuse.

Daniel didn't say anything, but she could feel him there…she wanted him to leave…wanted him to hold her and tell her that it would be okay…wanted him to scream at her…anything but sit there in silence. "I'll leave this here and come by later, okay?"

He rose from the bed and she heard the door close.

She didn't know how long it was before that door opened again. Hours, maybe longer. She expected Daniel. 

"Vala Mal Doran."

She opened her eyes. Teal'c stood silhouetted in the doorway. He inclined his head when he realized she could see him. "I require your assistance."

He surprised her enough that she moved to follow his movements as he came into the room. "You have not eaten."

"I wasn't hungry." Vala said.

His eyebrow went up. "You require sustenance."

She glanced at the tray still sitting on the end of the bed where Daniel had left it. He stood impassive for a long time, until she finally moved, groaning with the effort to make sluggish muscles respond. She pulled the tray closer and picked up the sandwich. Teal'c just stood there, staring at her until she took a bite. Once she had, he nodded and pulled a chair from beside the small table, sitting quietly. 

When most of the first half of the sandwich was gone, Vala sniffled and looked up at him. "Better?"

He inclined his head with a hint of a smile. "Indeed. It would grieve me if you were to die here in your pain."

She didn't have words to answer that, so she reached for the bottle of water. Her thoughts moved slowly through the days of nothing but grief, but came back to his first words. "What is it you need?"

He regarded her for a long moment before speaking. "As you know, the new Jaffa homeworld was once ruled over by Qetesh, long before you became her host."

She nodded. "There are many artefacts and memorials to her rule. We are only beginning to understand the depth of them."

"I think you want Daniel, Muscles, not me."

"On the contrary, Vala Mal Doran, Daniel Jackson is too busy and there is reason to believe that there is more treasure to be unearthed." He opened a hand and held it out to her. On his palm was a gold ring set with and emerald. She picked it up, thinking it had a familiar look.

She frowned, sorting through memories that weren't hers for something similar. She shook her head slowly. "I don't know." 

"The ring was found in a small hidden room. There is also a coded panel with a partial map. Recovering all that Qetesh left behind would help to solidify the struggling Jaffa nation."

"Why do you need me?" Vala asked, turning the ring over in her hands.

"We have tried for many days to understand the code, but it eludes us. I was hoping you could come and assist us with deciphering the code."

Vala handed the ring back and shrugged. "I'm not really in the mood."

"It is most urgent we find this treasure and use it to become strong once again."

On some level she was aware of what he was doing, but she had to admit that it was intriguing. She'd never been able to turn down a treasure hunt. "Where is this coded panel?"

"There are ruins of a temple, and within those ruins, there is a secret passage discovered by accident when we were attempting to clear the debris to rebuild. It goes down to a secret room filled with ancient artifacts. There we found this ring and the coded panel."

Vala inhaled deeply and let it out slowly. "Okay, fine. I need a shower and a change of clothes. Give me an hour."

Teal'c stood, inclining his head in gratitude. "I am in your debt, Vala Mal Doran."

"Not yet, Muscles." Vala said, standing and stretching aching limbs. "But you will be."

 

It wasn't long before Vala suspected that the whole treasure hunt had been manufactured for her benefit. The code was difficult enough, but felt much more like Daniel's handiwork than that of Qetesh. Each step came easier than it maybe should have, but she had to admit that it felt good to be away from everything that reminded her of her pain.

In the end, the treasure wasn't as spectacular as some, but the satisfaction in finding it was real. Vala stood on the overlook with the cave and its treasures behind her, looking down at the growing Jaffa settlement below. As a nation they still had a lot to overcome, and they were still fractured in many ways, but there was something about the way they kept trying that appealed to her.

Teal'c came to stand beside her, his hands clasped behind his back, his face impassive. They were quiet a long time until Vala sighed, thinking that Samantha would have liked it there. 

"Colonel Carter was my friend." Teal'c said softly beside her. "I feel her loss as that of a great hole inside me that will never again be filled."

A tear slipped from her eye. Teal'c's arm lifted to curl around her, drawing her close. Vala let her head rest on his shoulder, wiping at her eyes. "You are also my friend, Vala Mal Doran."

Vala turned, hugging him tightly. "Thank you, Teal'c." She meant so much more, but the words wouldn't come. She just held on and he held her back until she could breathe again. "Now, wasn't there talk of a feast of some kind?"

Teal'c smiled at her and inclined his head. "Indeed." 

 

It had become routine. Every morning, the three of them would wander into the mess hall on their own, within minutes of each other and migrate to an empty table and sit, at first in silence as they ate, and slowly they would talk. Sometimes they spoke of memories and times past. Sometimes it was about current missions, current events. 

Of the three of them, only Teal'c still traveled regularly through the gate on missions. Both Vala and Daniel had reached a point where physical limitations of age were enough to remove them from active duty and relegate them to the sidelines doing research and cataloging artefacts.

"My son and his family are looking forward to seeing you." Teal'c said as Daniel returned to the table with refilled coffee. 

"How is the new house coming?" Daniel asked. He put Vala's cup by her plate and took a sip of his own.

"It is nearly finished. They hope to move in before the child comes."

"I know the first pregnancy was hard on her, how is Kar'yn doing?" Vala asked.

"Rya'c tells me she is well, but the sickness lingers."

"And Bry'c?" Daniel asked.

"Growing stronger every day. He is bullheaded, like his father." Teal'c responded, smiling warmly. "I am grateful that Rya'c has chosen to stay out of the politics that continue to hinder our attempts to build a unified nation. It is a headache he does not need."

"Things still contentious?" Daniel asked, sitting back with his coffee.

"Indeed. I am going there this afternoon to help smooth over the latest crisis. The three factions can not agree on the simplest of matters and Bra'tac fears he is too old to hold the peace without assistance."

"What about the people? Are they getting along? I mean, the last time I was there, it was just the politicians with the problems, the average Jaffa were getting along fine." Vala offered, pushing her plate away.

"And so it continues." Teal'c replied. "I go to remind them of this and that they serve the people."

"Good luck with that." Daniel said. "I have to finish translating that scroll SG-25 brought back." He stood, draining his coffee cup and setting it on his tray. 

Vala stood too, not sure what her day would be, but eager to get it started. "I think I will start by checking in with Dr. Amber, see if she needs any more help with that cache of things from P3X-988."

She and Daniel walked out together, silent but close, riding the elevator together and only breaking apart at the turn that would take him to his office. "Oh, hey." He stopped her, one hand on her arm. "I have this dinner thing to go to in DC this weekend. I was wondering if you wanted to join me."

Vala smiled at him. "I'd like that."

"Good." He smiled too, then was gone, off to his work. It felt nice, having him like her again, having him include her in his life. It wasn't the same as it had been, but maybe this was better. They had become friends.

She smiled to herself all the way to Dr. Ambrose's lab, which still looked like a museum had exploded inside of it. The archeologist sat in the midst of it, her blonde hair in disarray and her glasses at the end of her freckled nose. Vala cleared her throat and Dr. Ambrose looked up smiling.

"Ah, Vala. I wasn't sure if you'd be back today."

"I'm all yours, Doc." Vala said, easing into the room and finding the spot she'd left off the day before. "Shall I just continue then?"

"I really appreciate the help. God knows I'd never get through it all without you."

Vala was just leaving the lab late that afternoon, thinking about grabbing dinner on her way home, when the siren sounded with "Unscheduled Offworld activation." A few seconds later came, "Medical Team to the gateroom."

She changed course, moving toward the gate room. By the time she got there, Daniel was coming out, his face showing distress. He caught her and pulled her with him. "Don't."

"Why? What's going on?" 

He swallowed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Teal'c." He leaned on the wall, his head down.

"Daniel, what about Teal'c?" 

He lifted his face and she could see tears on his cheeks. "He…Rya'c just…"

"Out of the way!" The medical team came through the door and she got a glimpse of Bra'tac's face as they ran by. Dr. Lam followed, pulling off bloody gloves.

"Daniel?" Vala's voice sounded small in the echoing space of the corridor.

Daniel didn't respond for a long moment, and when he did, she wished he hadn't. "Teal'c is dead. Bra'tac…probably won't make it. Rya'c got them to the gate, but…" He pulled his glasses off, wiping at his eyes.

"What happened?" Vala asked, dumbfounded. Teal'c was the last of them she'd ever considered losing. He was their strength, the solid core…

"He was betrayed." 

Vala looked up as Rya'c came out of the gate room. He looked stunned, disbelieving. "He and Bra'tac were on their way to speak with the council. They were walking with those believed to be friends. A coward caught my father off guard from behind and slit his throat. Bra'tac and the others subdued him, but not before Bra'tac was seriously wounded."

Vala blinked at him, trying to fathom Teal'c taken by surprise. "Why?" Vala asked, standing.

Rya'c shook his head. "The Jaffa who did this has not spoken."

The three of them stood there silently. "I must return home." Rya'c said suddenly into the silence. "Please send word of Master Bra'tac as soon as you are able."

"Rya'c, wait." Daniel said. "We…what can we do?"

Rya'c shook his head. "I will send word when we have prepared for Father's shel mek shel assah." He returned to the gate room and Vala could hear the gate turning.

Daniel wiped his face and wordlessly headed down the corridor. Vala followed, just as silently, all the way to the infirmary. They were met by Dr. Lam's second in charge. "He's in surgery now." 

Daniel nodded. "What's the prognosis?" 

"Not good. He took a knife in the chest and there was massive bleeding. It took them too long to get here."

"Okay, keep us informed?" Daniel said. 

"I will." He went back to work, leaving Vala and Daniel standing in the doorway. 

"What do we do now?" Vala asked softly when the silence had grown long between them.

Daniel looked at her, his eyes distant and red. "I don't know."

He walked away and Vala stood there, somehow not wanting to be alone, to go home to the empty house where she had collected the memories of a lifetime, she took a few hesitant steps to follow Daniel, surprised when he hadn't gone far. He turned to her and opened his arms. Vala let him wrap his arms around her, surprised at the way it triggered her tears. 

"Can we…" Vala started to say once she'd started to regain herself.

Daniel nodded and turned, keeping his arm around her. Together they made their way to the elevators and up, until they were standing beside their cars. "I…don't want to be alone." Vala said, her voice small and soft. 

Daniel kissed her temple and gestured to his car. "Get in."

They drove in silence, the dark settling in around them. Daniel parked in his driveway and inhaled slowly. "I never thought…" He shook his head. "I figured Teal'c would outlive us all."

Vala nodded. "He should have." She wiped at tears and waited for Daniel to do something, to speak, to get out of the car…instead, he turned to her, his hand caressing her cheek before sliding under her hair to cup her neck and draw him to her. His kiss was soft, gentle. "Daniel? What are you doing?" Vala whispered in the small space between them.

His eyes opened and found hers. "Something I should have done a long time ago," he whispered back, before kissing her again, his tongue slipping between his lip to caress hers, filling her mouth as she opened for him.

It was warm and familiar, comforting. He sat back, opening his car door and holding out his hand for her. Still a little stunned, Vala put her hand in his and let him draw her close before leading her to the door. Inside, Daniel pulled her in again, his mouth kissing over her lips, his hands on her hips steering her backwards into the living room.

"Are you sure?" Vala whispered when those hands moved to her belt.

Daniel's eyes stayed closed, but he nodded. "I'm sure." 

Vala worried for a moment that this was only grief, that come the morning Daniel would regret it, but his hand was inside her pants and his fingers were sliding into her and she gave up resisting, surrendering into her own grief, her own need to feel connected to someone. Leave the morning for the morning. Right now, this felt too good to be wrong.

 

Vala leaned her head back against the headrest, Daniel's hand in her lap, their fingers twined together. She was tired, but happy. The world outside the car was dark, punctuated by passing headlights and the occasional street lamp. It had been a long week, but they had the next four days off and Daniel had promised it would be four days with no pressures, no artefacts from alien planets, no late nights at the office, no talk of the various enemies they'd managed to make in the last two years.

He smiled at her and she marveled at the way he had aged, his hair shot through with gray, the skin around his eyes etched with tiny wrinkles that made his eyes seem deeper. "You okay?" Daniel asked, his eyes moving back to watch the road.

"Never better." Vala responded. She inhaled slowly and let it out. She meant the words too. She was completely content with her life. She had a job where she helped make a difference, even if that was more and more nothing more than assisting with archiving and cataloging things other people brought back. She had a strong, stable relationship with someone who loved her. 

They were on their way out of town for their short vacation, and Daniel's birthday. He was one year shy of sixty, though he hardly looked it, despite the gray. He was in better shape than many younger men, and if not for the trouble with his knees, could still be going on missions. 

"We aren't far now." Daniel said, pulling their joined hands up to kiss her knuckles before letting go of her and putting that hand on the wheel. "You hungry? There's a great little pub just past the next light."

"I could eat." Vala said, stretching. She unbuckled her seat belt and pushed herself up enough to reach into the back seat, grabbing her coat to fish out her phone.

"I thought we said no work." Daniel chided as she sat back and thumbed the phone on.

"Not work. I was expecting to hear from Cassandra today. They should be in Boston by now." She frowned down at her phone. There were no messages. 

"I'm sure she's fine." Daniel said, patting her knee. "You know how crazy it is with those three kids. She'll ca--" Daniel's words were drown out by the sudden impact, metal screeching against metal as the car lurched to the right.

Vala's door flew open as they started to roll, dropping her into the deep ditch at the side of the road. She felt the snap of her arm as she hit the ground, instinctively flattening herself against the earth as the car flew over her.

"Daniel!" She started to get up, but dropped back down as the car that hit them crashed toward her, missing her by only inches to land with its nose in the field and its back tires still on the road. Vala dragged herself out from under it, and up onto the field. There was more wrong than her arm, but she ignored the pain as she tried to get to the car. "Daniel!"

The driver's side was smashed and blood painted the window so that she couldn't see inside. "No, Daniel!" She inched around the car to where the passenger side door had been torn off.

Inside, Daniel lay broken and bleeding, twisted so that his head lay on the passenger seat, his lower body impossibly pinned in a combination of metal from the door and the steering wheel. Blood covered what she could see of his legs and there was something impaling his side.

"Daniel?" Vala's voice cracked and she sank down into the dirt, one hand shaking as she reached to check his pulse. His eyes opened slowly as her hand touched him. "Daniel?"

His eyes closed and panic gripped her. "Daniel I need you to open your eyes."

Sluggishly they opened again, this time with a little more focus. "Vala…"

Relief flooded her, but it was short lived as he tried to move, yelling as blood gushed from his side. "Shh. Lie still. Don't move."

In the distance she could hear sirens. "Okay, Daniel. Okay. Stay with me, okay? I'm going to try to get a look at your wounds." She got one foot into the foot well of the passenger side and leveraged herself up so she could lean over him. The problem was that her body effectively blocked all the light. She put her hand down, feeling gingerly over his side until she found the sticky path of blood that led her to the wound. Blood was pouring out at an alarming rate.

Vala eased back out and opened the back door, grabbing her bag and dumping the contents on the ground, grabbing a t-shirt before she went back in, feeling her way back to the wound and packing the t-shirt around the metal.

Her head was starting to swim and pain was registering in places she hadn't noticed before. She knelt in the foot well, her bloody hands petting over Daniel's face. "Please, Daniel…" 

His eyes opened again and he almost smiled. "Its okay, Vala." 

"No." Tears ran unchecked down her face. "Don't leave me alone."

"Be good." Daniel's voice was fading and his eyes were closing.

There were voices now, people yelling. Vala stepped out of the car, raising the arm that wasn’t broken. "Over here! Please hurry." She went back to Daniel. "Open your eyes." She was starting to realize she was in worse shape than she had first thought. Not all of the blood was Daniel's. "Daniel, please open your eyes."

She put her face near his and she could feel his shallow breathing but only barely. "Take me with you," she whispered, pressing a kiss to his lips. 

"Ma'am, we're here to help." The man was in uniform, his face filled with concern. "Are you injured."

"Him." Vala said. "Help him."

She let the EMT help her up and out of the car, but then there were others and they quickly got her away from the car and into an ambulance, working over her wounds in near silence. Outside she could still hear yelling and the sound of metal tearing as they fought to free Daniel from the wreck.

Her head was pounding and she was shaking and the last thing she heard before she passed out was someone saying they had him.

 

Vala sat numbly beside the bed in borrowed scrubs. Her left arm was in sterile white bandages and a splint. Her body ached, her head throbbed. All in all though, she had gotten off light. They were going to come chase her back to her own room soon, but they were going to release her in the morning.

Daniel on the other hand…

She'd heard stories about how Daniel never seemed to stay dead. Daniel himself had talked about ascending instead of dying. Now though…now he lay on this bed, alive only because the machines were keeping him alive. 

She slipped her right hand into his, rubbing over the back of his hand with her thumb. "It's okay, Daniel," she whispered. It wasn't okay, but she needed him to believe. "I'm going to be okay."

She kissed his hand, tears leaving wet spots on his skin that she slowly rubbed away. 

"Ms. Mal Doran." 

She looked up, wiping her eyes. "I'm not leaving him."

The doctor nodded. "I understand." He moved to stand near the bed. "You should know that there is no measurable brain activity. Dr. Jackson is only alive in that the machines are keeping his body working. There was too much blood lost, too much trauma."

She wanted to deny the words, but she knew he was speaking the truth. "Daniel wouldn't…" She shook her head. 

"You are listed as his next of kin." The doctor said, his said eyes pinning her to the chair. "The decision is yours."

For a long moment, she didn't know what he meant.

When it hit her, she couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the word "NO" screaming around inside her brain. "Could I…I need to be alone…with him."

The doctor nodded and withdrew. Vala moved so that she could sit on the bed beside him, taking his hand back in hers. She inhaled slowly and let it out just as slowly. "Daniel, I know you can't hear me, but I don't know…I need to say…" She licked her lips and looked away, anywhere but at him. "I never said thank you. Not in all these years. Not once. But you…you changed my life. I'm a better person because of you." 

Memories filled her, memories of loss, of watching those who had given her a reason to live the life she had now die, leaving her here, alone. But then other memories came to fill in the spaces. Memories of laughter, or celebration. Joy. Warmth flooded her. She kissed the back of Daniel's hand, then leaned in to kiss his lips. "I love you," she whispered. 

It wasn't fair to keep his body lingering when his spirit was gone. She nodded to the doctor who she could still see in the doorway. It didn't take long. A couple of switches, a couple of minutes…and through it all, Vala sat there with Daniel's hand between hers.

She sat there for a long moment after, until the nurse came to take her back to her own room. In the morning she would be discharged and she would go home. The problem was, she wasn't sure what home was, not anymore.

 

Vala sat in the midst of boxes half filled with treasures that would have made her a fortune a lifetime ago, overwhelmed at the idea that this was what it all came down to. There was a light tapping at the door and Vala called out, "Just a minute."

She stood, pulling on her jacket and adjusting her hair before she crossed to the door. The marine waiting for her nodded. "Ma'am, it's time."

She nodded and pulled the door shut, allowing him to escort her to the waiting car. Vala sat, slightly surprised to find General Lawson there too. "I hope you don't mind sharing your ride," the general said softly.

"General, of course not." She straightened her skirt and shifted in her seat.

"Good, I was hoping to talk with you in private."

Vala offered a strained smile. "And here we are."

"Yes. I realize that you probably haven't given a lot of thought about what comes next for you. This has all been rather sudden."

Vala looked out the window as the car started moving, taking them from Daniel's house to the public memorial where all the people he had known could come to say their goodbyes. Like Samantha before him, Daniel's body had been cremated and his ashes would be interred with Sam's in a small private cemetery.

"To be fair, General…" Vala said, "I've never really had much of a plan. And when I did, they never really worked out very well."

Beside her, the general nodded. "You have been pushed and pulled through your life, that is true.”

Vala shook her head. "Don't make it out like I didn't have choices. I'm just spectacularly bad at making them. At least I was…until I came to Stargate Command." She sighed and sat back against the leather seats. "And then…well, then I had Daniel and Sam and the others to make it…I don't know, easier maybe?"

"You make it sound as if you the only reason you're here is because of them."

Vala considered that. "I am who I am because of them. Left to my own devices, I would be a very different person. I can't deny that."

The general raised an eyebrow. "Do you believe that?"

"I was a thief, a self-centered survivalist with no ties, no redeeming qualities…" Vala nodded. "Everything that is good in my life came from them."

The car stopped and the general put a hand on Vala's before she could move to get out. "I want you to really think about that. In a few days, come see me. The Air Force is willing to offer you retirement, either here on Earth, or elsewhere, with a ship and supplies to get you going. Unless maybe you think there's something else you might want.”

The door opened and there were Marines guiding them out of the cars and into the service. The whole thing was something of a blur, people she didn't know talking about Daniel, about his life, his work. She kept wanting to turn to whisper in his ear, or to take Sam's hand. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine them there with her.

The service dragged on and on and eventually, Vala couldn't take any more and she slipped out the side door, inhaling deep of the cool air. She wondered what her mother would have made of the life Vala had created. It had been a long time since she'd thought about Magda Mal Doran and the life she'd had as a small child. Even longer since she'd wondered where she'd come from before then. Some part of her wondered if maybe she'd made it all up to begin with…the fantasy of an orphaned child set adrift in a world bigger than she knew.

She thought about the general's offer, about retiring to some quiet planet to live out her days alone. 

It wasn't a bad offer. The galaxy was a much quieter place than it had been. It felt empty somehow though. There was nothing out there for her. 

She wasn't the person who had survived out there, the person who had stolen and conned her way into and out of more trouble than she cared to admit. She couldn't go back to being that person, but without Sam or Daniel or the others to help her, she wasn't sure she wouldn't slide back.

Vala was reminded of a conversation she'd had with Sam years before, lying together in a bed in some quiet bed and breakfast when they'd talked about their pasts, about the lives they'd expected and the lives they'd lived.

_"if you had it to do over…" Vala asked softly, her fingers tracing a pattern up Sam's arms._

_"I wouldn't change a thing." Sam responded, leaning in to kiss her softly._

_"Not one thing?" Vala asked, knowing she wouldn't be able to say the same._

_Sam shook her head. "No, because any of it changes, I don't end up here. With you."_

Vala smiled to herself as she ducked under the walkway railing and ventured out across green grass, down a gentle slope to where a stream bounced over rocks and away. There were any number of things Vala regretted, would change if she could. Walking away from Sam the first time. Walking away from Daniel in Egypt. Hurting Tomin. Standing by helplessly as the others all died. Being alone.

She sat on the hillside, tears slipping past her lashes. She'd always been alone, always tried to fill the void with bad choices and a tough exterior, but in the end she was still alone.

"Are you?" Daniel's voice asked. She didn't look up, didn't respond. It was all in her head, and she knew it.

"Were you ever?" Sam's voice asked. Vala's breath caught in her throat.

"Things are often not as they appear to be." Teal'c said.

"If you only knew." Cameron offered.

Vala looked up, fully expecting to be alone, but she wasn't. The four of them sat to either side of her, there, but not…real, but somehow not. "Am I dreaming?" Vala asked through her tears. 

"Maybe." Sam offered, her hand covering Vala's. It was cool and shimmered, making Vala gasp.

Moments of time shifted into her awareness, memories of events that split and changed and coalesced back together. Memories jumped and floated around her…memories of two lifetimes…similar and different, leading her from a childhood over shadowed by the Goa'uld to a childhood spent laughing with adoptive parents, dancing her through teen years learning the skills she would use to steal and grift and con her way through life, two different lifetimes careening down the same path, leading inevitably to the same place.

"You chose to try again." Cameron said. 

Vala was breathless at the revelation, at the conflicting memories. "And still, I became a horrible person..."

"No." Daniel said. "You became the woman you needed to be to survive."

"The woman who became a part of SG1." Teal'c added.

"Who saved a galaxy." Cameron said, smirking. "In the end, we think you turned out okay."

"But what do I do now?" Vala asked. 

Sam kissed her lightly, leaving Vala's lips tingling. "Go easy on yourself."

"Be good." Daniel said, smiling as he stepped back beside Sam.

"I don't know how." Vala protested, standing and reaching out to them.

"Sure you do." Cameron said, taking his place beside Daniel.

"The answers are here." Teal'c said, his hand pressing to her heart. "As are we."

"Don't leave me again." Vala pleaded.

"Never." Sam answered, her hand covering Teal'c's. Cameron and Daniel followed the gesture and slowly they faded away until she was alone on the hill. She closed her eyes and inhaled slowly. Maybe, she wasn't as alone as she'd thought. 

"Be good." Vala said to herself. She bit her lip as she turned to return to the memorial service.   
General Lawson was waiting for her as she came up the hill, her blue eyes sparkling and that was when Vala put the whole thing together. "I'm on to you now." Vala said, coming to a stop beside the General.

"And?" she asked, a small smile playing around her lips. 

"I thought you weren't allowed to interfere."

She shrugged. "I didn't, really. I just opened a door. You had to step through it all on your own."

"So what happens now?" Vala asked, not sure she really wanted to know.

"I don't know. That is completely up to you."

"That is supremely unhelpful." Vala responded, crossing her arms. "You're the Ascended one."

She was starting to glow around the edges, making Vala's eyes water. "I don't have to be the only one."

"What? Me? Ascend?" Vala shook her head and stepped back. "I don't think I'd like it much."

She smiled as her form started to fade into the glow. "Only you can decide that, Vala."

"Wait." Vala called as she disappeared completely into the white light. "I didn't decide."

She got the distinct impression of a hand caressing her cheek. "You will, one day."

As she disappeared, the doors opened and people began streaming out, including the real General Lawson. 

It was over. More than over. Whatever her life had been, whoever she had become…she was done here and all that remained was a quiet life of retirement somewhere. Vala watched men and women she had known for years, their gray hair and tired faces reminding her what waited for her.

Vala wasn't ready for that. "General Lawson, if I could ask you a few questions about this cargo ship you say I can have…."


End file.
